[iaufwg] Final FITS review comments

[Steve Allen]

On Tue 2008-04-15T13:38:30 -0400, William Pence hath writ:
> I think Mark originally had in mind simply
> flagging any previous changes to the FITS syntax that software
> developers should be aware of when write FITS reading software.  This
> would presumably be a very short list.

Maybe not.  Determining the scope of this question is hard.  In one
sense, every time that a new keyword has been declared mandatory as
part of an extension, or reserved as part of a new convention, the
standard changes in a way that could adversely affect the
interpretation of previous files.

A full investigation of that might entail a list of every mandatory
and reserved keyword along with the date at which it became so.
(Plus, outside of the context of the standard itself, a heuristic
guide to the interpretation of files from various sites indicating
dates -- some before as well as after the standardization action --
and alternative meanings which were in use.)

To take that broad of a scope ends up with the sorts of curation
issues that the VO is facing as they create standards to which
any provider must convert their data before they can serve it.

> All this assumes that a few people are willing to devote some time to
> this project; as yet I don't have any volunteers.

I don't think the FITS standard can dare to go as broad as I just
suggested.  I am sufficiently unsure of the scope to want to
define it better before volunteering.  And I think it best if
the new standard gets approval without being slowed by this.

--
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