[iaufwg] [fitsbits] Start of the 'INHERIT' Public Comment Period

[Lucio Chiappetti]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2007, Doug Tody wrote on FITSBITS

>      1) What is a convention, and what is our role in documenting them, and
>      2) Is the INHERIT convention (most recently) a good idea

Since the discussion has shifted a bit from FITSBITS to IAU-FWG I reply 
quickly here.

> Regarding 1), I suggest that a convention is not an official recommended
> standard, and if we are confused about this fact, we cannot proceed to
> document conventions.

I agree with Doug (and also with Walter).

> The FITS registry of conventions should not "recommend" or "discourage"
> any convention.  If we start making such distinctions are we are
> starting to repeat the standards process.  

I agree. The only thing we *could* add is a statement about how widespread 
in usage a convention is. But here too I have doubts, how can we get such 
info in a trusted way, if not by word of mouth of the submitters ?

Also, even if a convention is used only at one site, it might be important 
(e.g. if used in the products produced by a MAJOR observatory or space 
mission).

> Regarding 2), INHERIT is an established convention in current use, and 
> as such should be documented.  It is absolutely fine if we do so with 
> various caveats about possible issues.

Personally, being myself rather simplicist (i.e. I like single-extension 
FITS files, or multi-extension with general documentation kwds in the 
primary HDU), I find nothing bad in INHERIT (that's why I was silent). The 
only remark I could make, similar but not identical to one I raised for 
the FOREIGN convention, was that some of the material in the documentation 
was not "informative" or "syntactical" but "usage notes", and as such 
could be dropped. However since such usage notes are mostly the caveats 
written by the convention authors, I've nothing against the fact they 
remain in the documentation as it stands now.

-- 
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