Some (but not all) of the ALBUS workpackages are supposed to deliver user software to deal with increasingly large data rates. At the moment it is not clear what the future data reduction package is for VLBI or radio astronomy in general. A package is required to provide the necessary infrastructure to develop new algorithms; this entails mostly data access methods and user interfaces. It would be of great benefit to the users if all processing steps (not just the ALBUS software) could be done in a single package.
ALBUS will not provide any new infrastructure, ie no new package will be designed. But making a choice for one coding platform would enhance the coherence in the ALBUS deliverables and minimize the pain for the users. The decision for ALBUS could be important for other groups working at a similar problem for other telescopes.
This page can be a platform for discussing these matters.
Following a discussion with Bill Cotton we had a meeting on the coding platform for ALBUS. From this followed a proposal to consider the development of a Python interface for classic AIPS. The case for this is described in this document pythonaips1.1.pdf