IRAF.NET Software Projects

While primarily a news and forum site, we hope to be able to use this opportunity to do some development as well. Some projects will be in developing the site itself, others will be IRAF-related, and we hope that still others will be run by the users themselves. Projects currently in mind include:

Website Development

Contributed Software Archive

We know there is much more IRAF software available in the community than is currently available from this (or any one) site. The downloads page will soon contain links to this additional software once we establish a mechanism for hosting it here or linking to it directly.

Astronomy Software Job Board

This started out as a Poll but seems to be unanimously supported so far. Initially we'll create a fairly complete list of software job postings in astronomy hope to add a resume board as well. If you know of an open position, or would like to help with this, please contact us.

IRAF Development

New Ports of IRAF

Mac/Intel is coming and by all accounts astronomers will want to use IRAF on these machines. A new port is required, but for us to do it a new machine will be required as well. Please see the Support page for how you can help.

Auto-Installers for IRAF & External Packages

IRAF installation can be made much simpler, and without the zoo of installers such as rpm/pkg/deb. This was done for the NVO Summer School recently and can be generalized for all IRAF distributions from this site.

A Community IRAFNET External Package

Everyone has their favorite utility script or task, and chances are other people need the same thing. This project will aim to collect all these tools into a proper external package distributed from this site. All we ask is you provide a help page for the task and the software itself, we'll take care of the packaging so others can benefit from your hard work.

Improved Documentation

Documentation is no fun, we know, but somebody has to write it. What exists is now viewable online but some of it should be updated and even more new docs could be written to help both novice and advanced users. If you've ever wanted to write a document, this is your chance.

A Regression Test Suite

Over the years we've collected a number of test scripts for use when porting IRAF, but nothing comprehensive. We need standard test data and scripts to exercise the entire system, and you needn't be an expert user to help with this. Pick your favorite package and help write a script to test it.

Once the site is running smoothly and all the basic features are in place we will focus more on these projects. If you would like to become involved or have suggestions for additional projects, please contact us.