[asac] Re: ALMA Software

[Mark A. Gurwell]

> Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 15:27:56 +0200
> From: Arnold Benz <benz at astro.phys.ethz.ch>
> To: "Mark A. Gurwell" <mgurwell at cfa.harvard.edu>
> Subject: ALMA Software  
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
> The European Alma SAC wants to discuss data analysis plans at the next
> telecon of April 12. 
> 
> Has there been any discussion on this already?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Arnold Benz
> 

Dear Arnold,

Sorry that I have not been able to respond before now.  I got your phone
message today, so I am spurred to reply to you.

I do not believe that there are any final plans on how realtime data 
analysis will procede, in the sense of the use of a particular package
such as Aips or Miriad.  From the document on Use Cases for the Science
Software Requirements, it seems that the user may have some choice on
which packages to use for online analysis, though I am hazy about this
at the moment.  I think that this will be too difficult to implement in
a practical way (indeed I'm not certain it is even suggested by the
SSR Committee), and that a standard package for the realtime calibration 
and analysis will have to be chosen, just for expediency and consistency.

This does lead directly to the question of concern: how will this be
done?  I don't know what sort of discussion has taken place on this so
far, the person to ask would be Robert Lucas who chairs the Science
Software Requirements Committee.  I believe that he has been asked to
join in the 12 April telecon (right Al?) but I will include him in the
distribution of this email so that he gets a heads up for this line
of discussion.  

In a reply to me on our section of the latest ASAC report on the 
Science Software Requirements, Robert does respond to this specific
question.  He wrote:

   '2. Obviously pipeline data reduction is a huge task:  the preparation 
   of detailed pipeline and off-line data analysis requirements has been
   started; this  will be followed by a re-use analysis of existing
   packages.'

So, in response to your query, I would say that some people are thinking
about this task.  I know that Karl Menten, for example, expressed serious
concern about this facet of the software development at the Florence 
meeting.  We will see where the situation is during the 12 April meeting.

Best wishes,

Mark
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Mark A. Gurwell                                                     
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics          voice: (617) 495-7292
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