Use the SIP Coding and Documentation Guide .

We recommend using a tool to help ensure PEP 8 compliance. PyCharm does a good job at this and other code quality checks.

The ARL has been designed in line with the following principles:

• Data are held in Classes.
• The Data Classes correspond to familiar concepts in radio astronomy packages e.g. visibility, gaintable, image.
• The data members of the Data Classes are directly accessible by name e.g. .data, .name. .phasecentre.
• Direct access to the data members is envisaged.
• There are no methods attached to the data classes apart from variant constructors as needed.
• Standalone, stateless functions are used for all processing.
• All function parameters are passed by the kwargs mechanism.

Additions and changes should adhere to these principles.

• Names should obey the SIP Coding and Documentation Guide guide.
• For functions that move data in and out of ARL, use import/export.
• For functions that provide persistent, use read/save.