End of IRAF Support?
June 23rd, 2005 by admin
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p>There is a post on sci.astro.research concerning the proposed end of IRAF support and development. This is certainly a disconcerting possibility, considering the wide range of use of IRAF – by large numbers of astronomer many of whom never use NOAO telescope facilities.
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p>Has anyone else heard any rumblings about the end of IRAF support? I think IRAF users should consider sending their comments in to NOAO urging that IRAF be supported and maintained into the forseeable future. I can’t think of anything worse, especially for Macintosh users, than an end of IRAF updates and such, especially with the upcoming Intel transition that will require a new compile of IRAF.
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p>Those of us out here in the IRAF community, myself included, while we may know how to troubleshoot certainly lack the expertise to fiddle with source code and make IRAF continue to work on new OS releases, etc. If in fact NOAO is considering long-term plans that include an end to the IRAF project, that would have enormous and delitirous consequences for astronomers the world over.
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p>I’ll have more on this in the coming weeks I’m sure. If anyone knows anything further, feel free to contact me.
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