[iaufwg] approval of the 'FOREIGN' extension convention

[Mark Calabretta]

On Tue 2007/02/06 15:34:06 CDT, William Pence wrote
in a message to: IAU-FWG <iaufwg at nrao.edu>

Bill,

>Since the FITS Registry depends on voluntary contributions, I think we 
>sometimes just have to accept the best documentation that people are 
>willing to provide, even if it has deficiencies.  If a new project 

On the other hand, everything that has been added to FITS to date has
been based on "voluntary" contributions, whatever obstacles may have
been in place.

>decides to adopt this old FOREIGN convention for new data, then perhaps 
>they can be persuaded to provide an updated document that clarifies some 
>of the issues that have been raised.

If the convention is not properly described then the new project would
inevitably create a look-alike variant using the same name.  This would
then create the problem of disambiguation.

The requirement is simply that of documenting how the convention was
used in practice.

>Otherwise, there is not much point 
>in debating the fine points of a convention if it not going to be used.

I pointed out that some parts of the FOREIGN convention, as described,
either were not workable or not interpretable as documented.  I would
not describe them as "fine points".

If, as it appears, the document presented was the original design
document then it's possible that many of the parts that I drew attention
to were not actually used in practice.  Ergo, remove them.  But if they
were in fact used, then clarify them.  Where is the problem?

If the convention is worth anything then surely those who actually used
it have the most to gain by documenting it properly.

>Eric Greisen made a good suggestion to me off line that we provide a 
>mechanism for adding comments or queries about a convention in the 
>Registry.  Future users of the convention could also add more comments 
>about how they have interpreted the convention should be used.   A 
>simple way to do this is to just add an HTML link to a page titled 
>"Further comments about the convention".  In the case of the FOREIGN 

In fact, it sounds like the wiki reinvented! - c.f. discussion on this
list 12 months ago.

The discussion could then be widened to the relative merit of the
convention itself, compared with other methods, rather than being
confined to the adequacy of its documentation.

Cheers, Mark