[AstroPy] Python spectral fitting package - ala Sherpa

[Tom Loredo]

Hi Paul-

I'm developing something along these lines as part of the statistics
package I'm working on with Alanna Connors (associated with the
astrostat group behind Sherpa) and Travis Oliphant.  Also, I wrote
the algorithm for the Bayesian statistic that Peter Freeman put
in Sherpa, so that will be part of the package.  We call it a
Parametric Inference Engine (PIE).  Besides minimization, it
includes tools to help with other tasks, such as quadrature over
uninteresting params, maximization over subsets, calculation of
Hessian matrix, and we hope some basic capability for Markov
Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), though there's a certain limit to
how much that can be automated.

We should have a prototype in the next couple months; I'll run it
by you.

This may be a package of its own, but at the moment we're leaning
toward making it a subpackage of SciPy.

-Tom
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