<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><div class=""><div class="">On Jun 1, 2016, at 5:39 AM, THIERRY FORVEILLE <<a href="mailto:thierry.forveille@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr" class="">thierry.forveille@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><span style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Like Tom, I object to what seems to have become an implicit assumption that</span><br style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">incorporating a convention into the standard is a good thing, as long as it</span><br style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">has significant existing use. There are costs to extending the standard (unless,</span><br style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">as Tom also says, one accepts that everybody uses cfitsio), and those need to</span><br style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">be balanced against the benefits. </span><br style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">I think this is an important distinction. There is a significant difference between documenting use of the FITS format and incorporating it into the standard. As an example, I recently came across UV data, which immediately crashed my FITS viewer, and then this in the AIPS File Format Memo:</div><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">
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<div class="column"><p class=""><span style="font-size: 10.000000pt; font-family: 'CMR10'" class="">In the UV-tables form, the visibility data are written as a FITS binary table, normally placed after the other
table extensions. The primary HDU has an </span><span style="font-size: 10.000000pt; font-family: 'CMSY10'" class="">AIPS </span><span style="font-size: 10.000000pt; font-family: 'CMR10'" class="">conventional form meant primarily to be so odd as to
act as a reliable identifier. The primary HDU asserts that the primary data has two axes, the first of which
has 777777701 values while the second has zero values. This is su</span><span style="font-size: 10.000000pt; font-family: 'CMR10'" class="">ffi</span><span style="font-size: 10.000000pt; font-family: 'CMR10'" class="">cient to tell all FITS readers that the
primary data set is not a random groups data set and otherwise contains no data. </span></p>
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</div></blockquote></div><div class="">This may be convention, but it's *lying*. I'm sure that there are untold numbers of FITS files of UV data that use this convention. Should it be part of the standard? Absolutely not.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The difference here is one of documenting use cases and *endorsing* the behavior for the future. As an application writer I need to know how people (ab)use the FITS format, but that doesn't mean that misuse should be endorsed because people are doing it. What would be useful for software writers is a document of use cases so programs like mine don't crash, but as a standards body the responsibility is to promote the best possible use of the format.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div>Cheers,<div class="">Demitri<br class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Gill Sans'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">_________________________________________<br class="">Demitri Muna<br class=""><a href="http://muna.com" class="">http://muna.com</a></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Gill Sans'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class="">Department of Astronomy<br class="">An Ohio State University<br class=""><br class=""><div class="" style="text-align: -webkit-auto; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="text-align: -webkit-auto; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">My Projects:</div><div class="" style="text-align: -webkit-auto; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><a href="http://nightlightapp.io" class="">http://nightlightapp.io</a><br class=""><a href="http://trillianverse.org" class="">http://trillianverse.org</a></div><div class="" style="text-align: -webkit-auto; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><a href="http://scicoder.org" class="">http://scicoder.org</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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