Most repositories on software sharing sites are badly structured
I am reading the 14 repositories for CASA (Common Astronomy Software Applications) at https://github.com/orgs/casangi/repositories
There are only 6942 files and 1814 folders in total and what appears to be many duplicates. And MANY duplicate file and folder names. A good part of the problem with CASA is the poor methods for file management. If there are unique things they need unique and unambiguous identifiers, not relative ones. If there are duplicates, they need to be gathered and disintermediated (to remove unnecessary intermediate links).
Put it into ONE CASA global open repository and stop fragmenting. Python can be compiled, but it is too loose for large projects with global collaborators. Just because it seems easy, does not mean Python is a good programming environment for all tasks. Not in its current fragmented and “anyone can do whatever they want” environment. A few dozen or a few thousand people – barely. But millions or billions, no.
There are 8.1 Billion humans and in their lives most can see the stars, or hear about them. There are tens of thousands of high schools, colleges, universities, and almost that many (fragmented and “not working together at global scale”) groups online. I could do much of that sort of thing in grade school and middle school and I am not as smart as many others.
Hardly any EDU or ac.* site, nor countless ORG, GOV, go.* and gov.* sites that wants to promote astronomy and astrophysics is doing much at all to simplify losslessly the stuff that gets dumped on the Internet in the name of “sharing”. It is not “sharing” if it is not accessible at the high school level. I would argue it is not “sharing” or “accessible” if my 3 year old grand-daughter cannot access it with simple point, drag and drop and gestures or voice commands. If she wants to see data on temperatures and acceleration fields of a random star she finds, the Internet (if those “AIs” would get their act together) can do it.
I can rewrite CASA in much more compact and efficient form for myself. But “IT IS NOT MY JOB!”. The ones calling themselves certain job titles, getting the degrees, promoting their organizations for government grants and nonprofit donations – they self-appoint themselves. Say they are doing it “for the good of all humans” and then do not do what is needed at global scale to follow through. The “observatories” on the Internet are the absolute worst for sharing of many bad kinds of sites. They never never check their own sites, nor go looking for who would like to use what they dump on the Internet or put behind paywalls and “donate”.
I see the vast duplication of content, copies and fragments, untraceable authors, untraceable organizations, government grants and funding going to groups who NEVER share their results in forms that any one can use.
It is “your job”. And you cannot do it by dumbing down, or restricting, or hiding.
I cannot share anything substantial on Twitter(X) in its current form. Or I would add some specifics about this dinky little group of programs and house of cards namespace. These groups are supposed to be some of the smartest and brightest. And they cannot organize a few thousand pages on the Internet to save their lives, or anyone else’s. It takes “looking at the whole of CASA”, you have to “grok” CASA”. @elonmusk
( “CASA” open software astronomy ) has 2.07 Million entry points, and there are many more connections and dependencies.
( “Common Astronomy Software Applications”) has 11,300 entry points and you cannot leave off any of them.
(“astronomy” OR “astronomía” OR “天文学” OR “الفلك” OR “खगोल विज्ञान” OR “astronomie” OR “জ্যোতির্বিদ্যা”) has 713 Million entry points and there are a LOT more.
It is your job, if you choose to do it responsibly for the good of all, not just a few.
Filed as (Most repositories on software sharing sites are badly structured)
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
