Author: T. F. Droege Address: droege@fnal.fnal.gov, droege@wwa.com Date: 950925 Revision: #0 950925 Key Words: documentation, library, note
The time has come to be a little better organized. For many years we have had a technical note system in my group at Fermilab. This has been very helpful. I often get mail here asking me to explain one thing of another. I then write a long treatise only to have the priceless words lost in the large file of TASS correspondence. Having a technical note system allows a quick answer by allowing me to say "look at technical note 004".
Anything that can be electronically distributed. My rules at Fermilab were "anything that can be xeroxed." There were one or two calculations on the backs of envelopes, and at least one place mat from the local Chinese restaurant with a lunch time design on it. The title should give a good idea of the contents. For this group I have added a key word section since we should be able to do an electronic search.
In general it should contain a single topic. Examples, "FITS Format for TASS Files", "Cooling Calculations for the Mark III Camera". But it could be a relatively long paper. "Design and Operating Experience of the TASS Sky Survey". The key to making something a tech note over just general discussion on the net is whether or not you want to be able to refer to it in the future. Some nice technical discussions have already been lost because there is no good way to find them again.
This is not the filing system for data blocks. But it could hold a note like: "Dark Current Determination from Runs xxxx to xxxx"
Don't worry that your note contains several levels of extractions from previous authors. Just give everyone the courtesy of identification of their ideas. But don't worry too much if this is difficult. Do the best you can. Just don't blatantly steal other's ideas. These are meant to be very informal notes. It has been a long time since I took a course that covered copyright law, and I know it has changed a lot. Today I believe your ideas belong to you whether or not you attach a copyright notice. I am after a free exchange of information. I believe these notes will fall within the rules covering exchange of information for educational purposes.
This note will serve as a model note. The absolute minimum requirement is a serial number a title, a date, and an author's name. There should also be some content. Encouraged are a revision number and date, key words, and the author's e-mail address.
All notes should contain a header in the format at the start of this note. The first line contains only the note number and the title. This is in order to provide as much space as possible for the title. If you really need a longer title, then create a short title that fits the 65 character limit, and then head the paper with the longer title. This should facilitate a search and the extraction of appropriate notes. The rest of the header is in a fixed format to again allow searching. I am open to changes by those that are wiser than I on such matters.
Anyone. Many of you are not in the academic world where this sort of communication is common. So don't be bashful. I will put up a few inane notes just so the rest of you will feel free to post your ideas.
I propose to limit the line width to 70 columns. This is not a hard and fast rule but it helps when printers do not do their own formatting. The ghost of the 80 column card will stay with us forever.
As near as I can tell, this is an unsolved problem. Around Fermilab the physicists seem to write in TEX with figures in Postscript. This produces very large files. On the internet, GIF files seem to be the best standard for drawings. I am open to suggestions. I hope one can get by without a UNIX connection. I really like a system that allows one to imbed little figures in the text. Sigh! Apple did solve this problem.
References are nice, but not essential. These are not meant to take the place of a proper publication.
The proper way to refer to these notes will be "TASS-TN-1" for a short reference and 'TASS-TN-1, Archive Location "Preparation of TASS Technical Notes", T. F. Droege, 1995' Someone who has library or citation skills may want to correct me here.