astropy
Coordination Meeting 2025
If we try something from https://astropy-dei.orgmycology.com/ after Coordination Meeting 2024, should report back on what we tried and whether it worked.
Array API + Quantity 2.0 -- Lots of discussions at Coordination Meeting 2024. Any progress after a year?
Did we implement anything discussed in the Are there big missing pieces? breakout at Coordination Meeting 2024?
Annual roadmap discussions.
- Update from last year: https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/pull/433
Strategic Planning Role -- If we ended up filling the role after Coordination Meeting 2024, did it work?
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/pull/461
Note for SOC: If the LOC plans to do a press release about this meeting, should add a "are you okay with your photo being used" question in the registration form. Thanks!
APE 22 follow-up (if necessary):
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy.github.com/issues/571
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/issues/437
- Should we set up a retirement plan for unmaintained affiliated packages under the old scheme as well?
Reports from projects that got money from Astropy since the last Coordination Meeting (Cycle 4?).
Celebrate getting 2025 Lancelot M. Berkeley–New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy from AAS.
Press releases:
- https://aas.org/press/astropy-collaboration-receive-2025-berkeley-prize
- https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-401
Maybe also celebrate the 10k citation when it got a press release too:
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/issues/431
(More seriously, can be part of "State of Astropy" update.)
In addition to the array API bullet, it would be useful to resurrect the discussion of creating a "Quantity/unit API" analog to the array API (cc @mhvk @nstarman @jeffjennings)
Re: https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/issues/430#issuecomment-2391735657
@adrn -- Is that already an issue somewhere?
I don't know if it's an issue or an email thread or a section of a google doc or a discussion in a separate issue, but @mhvk or @nstarman might remember :).
Discussion so far has been mostly about Quantity 2.0, at https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/pull/91 - there hasn't been much discussion about a units API beyond https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/8210
@astrofrog -- Hack session to reconsider layout of current astropy documentation landing page.
Leverage https://github.com/scientific-python/sync-teams-action to automate project team membership and access? Would like to discuss pros, cons, security implications specific to our project.
Switching to Meson build system?
My primary motivation is that it would be incredible if Astropy could automate the release process to the point that bugfix releases could be done on a small-n group of bugs basis.
Also, match scipy and other leaders of the ecosystem.
We can also then leverage useful tools from scientific-python like spin to ensure that we have a consistent CL regardless of the tool, e.g. if we ever switch from tox to nox people could use the nox command if they want OR not have to learn anything new because we use spin.
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/17760
Idea 2: Hack day using LLMs to rewrite some of our various C(ython,++,#,?) codes into a single framework, probably whichever best supports Numpy.
Idea 3) Build a feature release & planned refactors GH Project board. Then we can see what everyone in Astropy thinks needs improving / adding to.
My primary motivation is that it would be incredible if Astropy could automate the release process to the point that bugfix releases could be done on a small-n group of bugs basis.
I am +1 on this, but I don't think it would involve swapping build system, we could almost certainly automate most of the drudgery with actions.
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/12889
Re: automate release -- What exactly needs to be automated still? We already use the publish workflow from OpenAstronomy. Things like website update and community announcement are still manual but a matter of copy paste.
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/12889
@dhomeier -- Update code recommendation for Unicode
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/17731
Switching to Meson build system? My primary motivation is that it would be incredible if Astropy could automate the release process to the point that bugfix releases could be done on a small-n group of bugs basis. Also, match scipy and other leaders of the ecosystem.
The main advantage that SciPy sought from switching to meson wasn't about automating the release process but rather more reliable and speedier builds :) especially because setuptools is effectively impossible to really parallelize whereas meson is extremely parallelizable.
New policy discussion -- removing roles
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/issues/462
GSoC – 2025 applications are already closed; is there interest in mentoring projects for 2026 and demand for an Astropy coordinator?
Re: automate release -- What exactly needs to be automated still?
I mean in principle bugfix releases could be completely automatic and happen periodically if there are new backports to the release branch
EDIT by pllim: Conversation moved to https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/12889
astropy user survey
Action item for the meeting: @jeffjennings (or his colleagues involved in the survey) could present survey results.
As posted on https://groups.google.com/g/astropy-dev/c/5JqGiadcufw
Example announcement:
The Astropy Project is running its first user survey! Please take 15 minutes to give your input before April 1 to help us better understand how astropy is being used, how it can be improved, and how we can best continue to support the astronomy and scientific research communities. Thank you in advance for helping us shape the future of Astropy!
I've gotten some responses regarding possible tutorial/hack sessions, specifically from the group of community faculty that participate in our ASTRAL program:
- point-source aperture photometry
- creating color images from individual images in 3 filters
- image stacking and/or creating continuum-subtracted narrowband images
Re: https://github.com/astropy/astropy-project/issues/430#issuecomment-2702208314 -- I think @mwcraig might already have materials for these but maybe he can confirm.
I would like to propose discussions on:
- sustainability of our testing strategies (https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/17596)
- modernizing our build system (https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/17760)
I've studied both topics in enough depth that I could do a presentation for either, and I think both would benefit from project-level discussions.
Also, and perhaprs more importantly: free-threading Python is coming for us
- https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/16916
(I can also give a talk on this)