  The Athena Startup Kit (ASK), is an interactive front-end to the Atlas
software framework (ATHENA). Written in python, a very effective "glue"
language, it is build on top of the, in principle unrelated, code repository,
build, configuration, debug, binding, and analysis tools. ASK automates many
error-prone tasks that are otherwise left to the end-user, thereby pre-empting
a whole category of potential problems. Through the existing tools, which ASK
will setup for the user if and as needed, it locates available resources,
maintains job coherency, manages the run-time environment, allows for
interactivity and debugging, and provides standalone execution scripts. An
end-user who wants to run her own analysis algorithms within the standard
environment can let ASK generate the appropriate skeleton package, the needed
dependencies and run-time, as well as a default job options script. For new and
casual users, ASK comes with a graphical user interface; for advanced users,
ASK has a scriptable command line interface. Both are built on top of the same
set of libraries. ASK does not need to be, and isn't, experiment neutral. Thus
it has built-in workarounds for known gotcha's, that would otherwise be a major
time-sink for each and every new user. ASK minimizes the overhead for those
physicists in Atlas who just want to write and run their analysis code.

Software Engineering