I guess people have probably already seen this. There is a stub entry
on starlink.

David


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 17 September 2010 01:08
Subject: Announcing the AstroShare Wiki
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>


This message is to announce the existence of the AstroShare Wiki
(http://www.astroshare.org). This represents part of an effort to
encourage communication within the astronomical software community. A
number of people have put some effort into getting this started. We
hope there is something useful there already, but mostly we hope
others will add to it and that it will grow to become a useful
resource for the sharing of information and experience within our
community.

Many of you will have been at recent ADASS or SPIE conferences. At the
Marseille SPIE 2008 Software Conference (within Astronomical
Telescopes and Instrumentation) a paper [1] introduced the subject of
sharing within the Astronomy Software community, and this paper was
followed by a very successful and lively open discussion on the
subject. At ADASS 2008 in Quebec a second, essentially independent,
paper [2] tackled the similar topic of "communication" within the
community. The essential theme of both papers, and the discussion, is
that as a community we are not doing what we could to share. These two
papers followed a first work presented at ICALEPCS in 2007 [3] that
analyzed the current trends in software for astronomy projects and
identified areas for potential collaboration. This discussion
continued at an informal meeting during the San Diego SPIE.
As projects, teams and individuals we are often tackling the same or
similar problems, but we are not learning from each other, nor sharing
ideas, as well as we could, and certainly not sharing as much code as
we would like (with a few excellent and very honourable exceptions).
We are sure that we can do very much better - we would like to see an
active astronomical software community.

This wiki is the first output of this initiative. What is its purpose?
Well, we see it as a place where everyone who creates (or uses!)
astronomical software can share their knowledge, experiences and
thoughts. Just that. What you see in it will change and evolve over
time - at least that is our hope - but if you are an early visitor you
will find an initial structure in place that divides astronomical
software into a number of domains. We have seeded some of these with
our own first thoughts. But this is meant to be a community wiki.
Please contribute your own experience and thoughts. Note that there is
also a general discussion area, intended to discuss what we should do
- to evolve this wiki, and to create more opportunities for sharing.
There is also a Google group for discussions; a link is on the
AstroShare main page.

This is your wiki. Please use it.

Note: Please forward this to any of your colleagues that we might have
missed (we should have covered anyone who gets ADASS announcements and
recent authors of SPIE papers). We do not intend to send any further
messages beyond this announcement e-mail - anyone interested in
AstroShare should visit the site at http://www.astroshare.org.

[1] Chiozzi G., Bridger A., Gillies K., Goodrich B., Johnson J.,
McCann K., Schumacher G. and Wampler S., "Enabling technologies and
constraints for software sharing in large astronomy projects", in
Proc. SPIE, 7019-0Y
[2] Shortridge, K., "Talking amongst ourselves - communication in the
astronomical software community" ADASS 2008, ASP Conference Series,
411, p3.
[3] Chiozzi G., Gillies K., Goodrich B., Johnson J., McCann K.,
Schumacher G., Silva D., Wallander A., Wampler S., "Trends in Software
for Large Astronomy Projects", in Proc of ICALEPCS 2007, Knoxville,
Tennessee, USA, October 2007