[AstroPy] Buridan's ass-----what combo should I choose?

[Perry Greenfield]

On Aug 13, 2014, at 11:48 AM, Chris Sontag wrote:

> PyRAF *can* technically work alone (without IRAF), but this would only be useful in very limited situations.  This is probably not your use case.
> 
> PyRAF is not a replacement for IRAF, it is a Python shell around it, and a Python API to it.  It does not include IRAF.
> 
> For nearly all such cases, you do actually want IRAF tasks in your work-flow (you would know this, not I), and if so, then you do want to install IRAF.  To install IRAF, simply use Ureka or go to iraf.net.  I agree Ureka works very well for this (though I also work at STScI).
> 
> Chris
> 
To elaborate, the main reason for using PyRAF without IRAF: one wants to construct tasks that run like IRAF tasks from the PyRAF user interface, but actually call python code. This is mainly to retain the the CL-like task invocation syntax (which has some advantages).

Perry