Announcing the new code4solar mailing list

[Joe Hourcle]

Apologies in advance for spamming everyone; I'm using BCC so you
don't get a bunch of replies from the other people. There are
some scientists in the list, but it's mostly IT & data people.

This will be a one-time mailing, and I'll submit something to
Solar News & submit an abstract for the TESS meeting in April.

-Joe

...


Are you a programmer / sysadmin / DBA / IT / IS person who works at a site
that supports solar physicists?

Or are you a solar physicist who wants to improve their coding knowledge?

If so, you may be interested in a new mailing list 'code4solar' for coders
in solar physics:

https://lists.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/code4solar


...

We hope to be a project & programming language agnostic forum where people
can discuss various IT/IS related issues that many of us have to deal with:

* Building catalogs of millions of FITS files
* Trying to keep people from DOSing your server as they suck down all of
your data
* How to move around TBs of data without killing your network
* Hardening servers to keep out people who are convinced you have
evidence of UFOs
* Configure your webserver so FITS files are downloaded without having to
right click and choose 'save as...' for every link.
* Run IDL as a CGI
* Fit solar data into cataloging standards that weren't designed for solar

We shouldn't all need to re-create the wheel when in all of these cases,
some other institution has already done it. [1]

So, if you work in solar physics, and have ever cringed at the sight of
poorly documented legacy code (even if it's your own), shells scripts run
as CGIs, code with no variable names longer than 4 characters, convoluted
cron jobs to call IDL batch jobs, or people who think they know everything
about a subject because they read a 'considered harmful' article [2], then
this mailing list is for you.

Potential discussions include:

- Releases of new software
- Requests for beta testers
- Discussions of software / system designs
- Securing legacy code
- Software & data citation
- Backup systems
- Documentation standards

- Topical announcements such as:
- software releases
- training opportunities
- job openings
- upcoming meetings
- security vulnerabilities


To sign up, visit:

https://lists.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/code4solar


[1] The answer to #3 is USB drives + FedEx or UPS.
For some of the web-related ones under Apache, see
http://docs.virtualsolar.org/wiki/WebserverSetup

[2] http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html :
"Considered Harmful" Essays Considered Harmful

...

And to head off the questions that have been asked so far:

This is phase 1. If we get enough interest, we can look
into where to host FAQs, code snippets, etc. Or the
possibility of writing technical papers, hosting
hackathons, or running Software Carpentry workshops.

I'm focusing on solar to try to keep the discussions
relevant to the subscribers. I could see some crossover
with astronomy due to FITS, or maybe the heliosphere folks,
but we don't need the earth science folks telling us that
all of our problems have been solved by OGC & NetCDF.

Please keep OS and text editor wars (eg, vi vs. emacs)
to a minimum. I do understand the need for the occasional
PHP bashing, though, especially if you're a sysadmin
that had your security office come and seize your machine.
(I'll count that under 'vulnerability announcements')

I have absolutely no idea how much traffic the list might
generate. Feel free to lurk if you just want to see
what other people are doing but don't have time to
answer questions. (or work for one of those contractors
that have to account for every minute of your day)

-Joe

Feel free to forward this to anyone that you think might be interested.

-----
Joe Hourcle
Programmer/Analyst
Solar Data Analysis Center
Goddard Space Flight Center