[fitsbits] Start of the Green Bank Keyword Convention Comment Period

[Tom Kuiper]

William Pence wrote:
> Can you be more explicit?  I only see one document listed on the Green 
> Bank convention page.
>   
On http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/registry/sdfits.html
under
Full Documentation
there are
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/registry/sdfits/sdfits.pdf, the 1995 draft by 
Harvey Liszt
and
http://adswww.harvard.edu/abs/2000ASPC..216..243G by Bob Garwood.

The former uses the keywords MAXIS, MAXIS1, ... to describe the data 
structure whereas the latter uses the TDIM keyword which is now in 
general use.  I think Garwood's paper is correct but Harvey's gives more 
detail.  For that reason, someone not familiar with all the background 
might use Harvey's paper as the definitive one thinking that Bob's is 
just a short version of the same thing.

Ideally, Harvey's paper would be modified to use the TDIM convention.  
Also, I would like to see added to it the explanations of the keywords 
and column names like those found in AIPS++ Memo 236 
(http://aips2.nrao.edu/docs/notes/236/node14.html) or 
https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/Main/SdfitsDetails.  But beware that 
some core keywords were put in the shared category, which was probably a 
mistake.

Regards

Tom