Re: Late comments (mainly) on the UCD word list

From: Frederic V. Hessman <hessman-at-Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 19:02:32 +0200


>> 16. a new word "pos.offaxis" should be added. Rationale: the off-axis
>> angle may be a useful quantity is some catalogs
> I agree.

But "pos.relative" is much more general and just as good for this particular use.

>> 21. we propose to add "src.stellarityIndex". Rationale: it may be
>> useful
>> to easily discriminate point-like from extended sources
>
> A word with the description ?stellarity index? already exists.

Yes, but "src.starGalaxy" is obviously not general enough for a galactic nebular catalogue: is the
value in the table indicating that the object is a star, a non-stellar nebula, or really a galaxy?

Thus: "src.pointlike" or "src.resolved" !

>> Finally, there are still two corrections to the descriptions to
>> remove narrow applications of general concepts:
>> src.morph.type | morphological type, e.g. Hubble (there are
>> others!!!)
>> src.morph.scLength | scale length, e.g. of disk or bulge in a
>> galaxy (there are others!!!)
>> src.spType | spectral type, e.g. MK (there are others!!!!)
>
> Sorry, but I did not study english at school. I studied latin.
> When you write:
> i.e. = id est, you mean: that is
> e.g. = exempli gratia, which means: for example (i.e., of course,
> there are
> others!!!)

Sorry - I obviously meant for you to edit out the "(there are others!!!)" but didn't say so.

>> I'm still not enthusiastic about the inconsistant use of contractions
>> ("lg" is OK for "local group" but "sg" is not OK for
>> "supergalactic"???), > but there are obviously too many of us old
>> people who grew up worrying about to get our > data into 4k of
>> computer memory...
>
> Indeed!!! I still feel that changing to ?supergalactic? was a terrible
> waste of memory!! :-)

XML is a waste of memory in any case, but the point is that it doesn't matter. We're talking about a 5% effect in the size of documents - it's a waste of time to even think about it, so one might as well be explicit.

Rick



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Dr. Frederic V. Hessman     Hessman-at-Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE
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Received on 2005-07-27Z17:58:14