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.

The Gaudi/Athena and Grid Alliance (GANGA) is a front-end for the configuration, submission, monitoring, bookkeeping, output collection, and reporting of computing jobs run on a local batch system or on the grid. In particular, GANGA handles jobs that use applications written for the Gaudi software framework shared by the Atlas and LHCb experiments. GANGA exploits the commonality of Gaudi-based computing jobs, while insulating against grid-, batch- and framework-specific technicalities, to maximize end-user productivity in defining, configuring, and executing jobs. Designed for a python-based component architecture, GANGA has a modular underpinning and is therefore well placed for contributing to, and benefiting from, work in related projects. Its functionality is accessible both from a scriptable command-line interface, for expert users and automated tasks, and through a graphical interface, which simplifies the interaction with GANGA for beginning and c1asual users. This paper presents the GANGA design and implementation, the development of the underlying software bus architecture, and the functionality of the first public GANGA release.