[fitsbits] start of Public Comment Period on the INHERIT convention

[Peter Weilbacher]

On Wed, 1 Jul 2015, THIERRY FORVEILLE wrote:

> "Frank Valdes" <valdes at noao.edu> writes
> ----- Original Message -----
> > P.S. I really don't like the suggestion that multiple "images", say
> > traditional CCD images, which are related should be "packed in a single
> > binary table".
> >
> The flip side is that doing that covers the need which you describe, and is
> already fully part of the standard.
>
> There is a non-trivial cost (in additional code in FITS readers that needs
> writing and, more importantly, maintaining) to multiple solution to the same
> problem, which I see as enough of a reason to say no to INHERIT.

On the other hand, reading and writing bintable data is less efficient
than writing image data. So when /using/ it, it creates extra overhead.
So depending on the use-case, writing MEF instead of bintables does make
a lot of sense, and that would benefit from INHERIT. (But since for
those purposes, INHERIT can be implicitly be assumed for the case at
hand, so that's a similarly weak argument for INHERIT as yours is
against. ;-))

   Peter.
-- 
Dr Peter Weilbacher                 http://www.aip.de/People/PWeilbacher
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