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p>The official announcement on changes to IRAF support has itself undergone a few changes since I made my original post. Here’s are some exceprts that seem new to me:
We are moving towards an open source model (although IRAF sources have always been freely available), which relies more on community efforts than in the past. To do this we will establish a web site providing forums for people to ask AND ANSWER questions, and post announcements, as well as searchable access to the large archive of email from our help desk and an updated FAQ facility. We hope to now make it more attractive for users to contribute bug fixes and enhancements, and we will be relying on the participation of those users in maintaining support for the user community.
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p>I’ve probably done my fair share of contributing support to the IRAF community as a whole, and the idea that IRAF users help each other out is not a bad one. But bug fixes? I have doubts there are any IRAF users out there who can go into the IRAF source code and fix bugs. I could be wrong, but I know I’m useless when it goes beyond basic troubleshooting. People email me as it is, and often I can help out, but sometimes I have to refer them to the IRAF help desk… which now will be an IRAF message board in which qusetions may or may not be answered by NOAO staff. I still would like to know how much time it’s taking at NOAO to answer the email at iraf@noao.edu.
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p>More from the announcement:
A traditional mission of the IRAF project was to provide exportable data reduction tools for NOAO data. These were written so that they could also be used with data from other observatories. The high citation rate for IRAF and the wide use of this software in the community illustrates the great success of IRAF for providing general data reduction tools for astronomers, students, and amateurs on a variety of data. While this mission is being phased out, there will still be occasional developments when they are needed for other aspects of our program.
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p>Am I wrong or should NOAO respond to the needs of the community rather than dictate to us what should be done? The wide use of IRAF is an indication of its importance for astronomy, and that it should not be “phased out” in any matter. Especially since NOAO has offered no replacement or transition concept for IRAF. IRAF is still the primary optical/IR data reduction tool… what exactly are people supposed to use if IRAF was to some day wither away?
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p>Those of us out there who use IRAF need to continue to express to NOAO our strong desire that IRAF support continue, and that NOAO decisions to outsource support, and diminish IRAF’s important are misguided and should be reversed. The last thing I think any IRAF user should do is be silent or be resigned to these changes. Let your opinions be heard and maybe we can change some minds.
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p>So, we now have an official word on upcoming changes to IRAF support. The leaked news of changes to IRAF certainly generated some discussion, and some emails. Several questions remain, for me, however in light of this news from NOAO.
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p>It’s certainly understandable that NOAO has in mind to take data reduction at its facilities in new directions, i.e. this new pipeline, data flow system, whatever they want to call it. IRAF, is after all, a rather old software package. However, that said IRAF is extremely important to a large number of users, and far more research is done with IRAF than on NOAO telescopes themselves. IRAF is important to a large portion of the entire astronomical community, not just as a means to reduce data from NOAO facilities.
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p>With the announcement, however, several questions remain.
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p>Why did it take a leak to generate a discussion in the community?
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p>It took leaked memos, and emails to NOAO to generate their response.
Previously, they were simply going to announce support changes in September. I don’t understand why NOAO can’t solicit opinion directly from the astronomical community before making huge changes that effect all of us.
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p>How much does supporting IRAF really cost?
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p>It’s my understanding the support costs for support IRAF are
relatively low. How many emails can they possibly get about IRAF support
get every day? I only get one every week at that; I’m sure they get more
but it can’t be overwhelming, maybe a few a day?
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p>Does NOAO not understand how important IRAF is to the community at large?
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p>IRAF is not just for reducing data from NOAO telescopes. IRAF is responsible for about 10 times more referreed publications as NOAO telescopes. NOAO’s new data-flow system is great, but it is not in any way a replacement for IRAF. Are we all supposed to use IDL? It seems like IRAF is a bargain for all the science it helps produce.
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p>IRAF support should be mantained at the current level
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p>IRAF is as important to the astronomical community as any telescope run by NOAO. As such, it should be treated as a precious resource, not some archaic system who’s value can be downplayed. NOAO should continue to maintain support for IRAF as it is today. The email help line iraf@noao.edu should be kept, and updates and bug fixes to IRAF should not be given any less priority than they are today.
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p>I understand that NOAO has limited resources. IRAF is an instance where the reward is far greater than the expense. IRAF is used by astronomers all over the country and world. It’s also used for educational purposes in college and sometimes even high school classrooms over the country. I know this from direct emails from teachers and students over the years.
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p>The expertise of those who helped created and maintain IRAF does not exist outside NOAO, as far as I know. I have no idea how to fix a bug, how to check source code. All I’ve been able to do the last few years is help Macintosh users get through a few UNIX hoops they have to do in order to get IRAF. If the community at large is supposed to somehow help each other through a bulletin board, I don’t see how this can be a replacement for the IRAF email desk, since the announcement indicdates that DPP staff itself won’t answer questions.
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p>Furthermore, there’s no reason why the development of IRAF should end just because NOAO says it should. IRAF is an excellent facility for reducing and analyizing data, even if it is old. Relatively recent developements such as the GUIAPPS, the new enhanced CL that is on the IRAF web site today – these should all be encouraged and continued, not cast aside. What exactly is the goal of de-emphasizing IRAF with no alternative planned for the future?
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p>This entire incident has hurt NOAO’s reputation. It would appear that they do understand the deep reliance on IRAF that exists in the astronomical community. IRAF should be enhanced and celebrated – not lowered to some second-tier support level. To me, it seems like that’s just the first step on the road to retirement.
Tags: community, future, IDL, IRAF, iraf support, iraf.net, unix — .
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p>NOAO has posted on their web site an official announcement about upcoming changes to the Data Products Program. This includes news of a new “data flow system” for NOAO telescopes, and changed to IRAF support first leaked a few weeks ago.
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p>The majority of the document concerns details of the new NOAO Data Portal, which will involve with capturing, storing, and subsequently reducing data from NOAO facilities. The site also notes that this new system requires an “increasing fraction of the DPP effort” and hence changes are needed to IRAF support. Specfically they say:
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- continue to maintain an IRAF website, which will
- provide access to current releases of the software
- contain improved static support information such as FAQs
- collect problem reports
- continue to issue updates to IRAF as new versions of operating systems or compilers are released. We will try to fix bugs as we issue these updates, as resources allow.
- organize discussions at upcoming science and technical meetings, such as the AAS, to try to establish a community-based mechanism for answering questions. One model we are considering is a moderated bulletin board for users to post questions and answers.
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p>I’ll make a subsequent post here with my editorial comments on all the news swirling around IRAF support and its future.
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p>So, the IRAF web/ftp server went down, and they restored from a backup. This, however, means the IRAF, STSDAS, and TABLES have reverted to the pre-Tiger installer versions, which don’t work on Tiger. So, I have uploaded the fixed installers again but I’m waiting for them to flip the switch and make them downloadable. So, beware the links on the download page are in fact, not, “tiger tested” at the moment.
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