[Matrix-SIG] advocacy

[Paul F. Dubois]

I have previously said something along these lines and gotten no reply:

What am I supposed to do with the increasing torrent of messages saying that
"I've got a package that does this for NumPy"?

There are often more than one such author per category. I am not in a
position to test or evaluate or describe such packages. Therefore, the
effort has to be distributed. But, from the point of view of users it has to
be centralized.

I believe some uniformity of make/install technology will be achieved. We
should adopt that when available. I could make a subdirectory on
ftp-icf.llnl.gov to hold "NumPyAddons". People can ftp to an "incoming"
directory we have and send me email and I can move the tarball over there.
The email can also have a *brief* description for me to paste into a README.
I'll reply when done, you post to python.announce, et voila.

Each tarball should have a README that tells at least who the author is and
how to contact them.

This model assumes no attempt to supply binaries. I'm not willing to offer
that much disk space and effort.

Perhaps there is a better way, but this much I think I can manage. Comments?

-----Original Message-----
From: Earl J. Spillar <spillar@uwyo.edu>
To: Paul Barrett <barrett@compass.gsfc.nasa.gov>; matrix-sig@python.org
<matrix-sig@python.org>
Cc: norbert pirzkal <npirzkal@eso.org>
Date: Wednesday, November 25, 1998 8:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Matrix-SIG] advocacy


>
>
>Paul Barrett wrote:
>
>>
>> I feel that in the astronomical community at least Python is reaching
>> critical mass.  More and more people that I talk to are interested in
>> using it.  (There is even discussion of tossing the IRAF CL and
>> replacing it with Python.)  So we need to make a push now to get a
>> basic data analysis system operational, if we are not to loose these
>> people.  We need a few more people to step forward and take charge of
>> a few critical issues, for example plotting and documentation, if we
>> are to succeed.
>>
>>  -- Paul
>>
>
>I also think that we are reaching critical mass. I think I count
>at least 4 efforts to work with FITS files. (Mine does N-dimensional
>FITS files; I don't deal with extensions at all, and my handling
>of tables is very far from alpha- but I can and do use the simple
>stuff all the time. )   I am surprised at the number of
>astronomers in particular who have contributed written to the
>matrix-sig- there aren't that many of us, or so I thought! This
>bodes well for our efforts.
>
>I think a high priority might be to set up some sort of a web/ftp
>site where we can share our creations.  This would:
>
>1) prevent the re-invention of the wheel (~4 FITS readers)
>2) help focus us on what needs to be done
>3) show newbies that there are already some tools to work with
>4) make it easier to find some of the stuff out there.
>
>Does this make sense to folks?  I was about to set up a "internal"
>site for me and some of my collaborators devoted to astronomical
>image processing in python.  It wasn't supposed to be anything
>elaborate, but we could certainly open it up to the community.
>There might be files there, and links to other sites.
>
>If there is already such a site, I'd like to know about it/them!
>
>The other possibility is to start up a separate SIG or something like
>that; but I don't think we want to steal the thunder of the matrix-sig,
>since our focus is probably fairly tight.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Earl Spillar
>spillar@uwyo.edu
>University of Wyoming
>Director, Wyoming Infrared Observatory 2.3m
>Occasional Python Hacker on Openstep, Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.
>
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>
>