PINT Is Not TEMPO3

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PINT is a project to develop a new pulsar timing solution based on python and modern libraries. It is still in active development, but it can already produce residuals from most “normal” timing models that agree with Tempo and Tempo2 to within ~10 nanoseconds. It can be used within python scripts or notebooks, and there are several command line tools that come with it.

The primary reasons we are developing PINT are:

  • To have a robust system to check high-precision timing results that is completely independent of TEMPO and Tempo2

  • To make a system that is easy to extend and modify due to a good design and the use of a modern programming language, techniques, and libraries.

How the documentation is organized

We try to keep the PINT documentation divided into four categories:

Tutorials

Easy-to-follow walkthroughs to show new users what PINT can do. No explanations or alternatives or fallback methods, just getting people to a point where they know what questions to ask. These should work for everyone without surprises or problems. Jupyter notebooks are a natural format for these. Includes Basic installation.

Explanation

Descriptions of how PINT works, why certain design choices were made, what the underlying concepts are and so forth. This is for users who know more or less what to do but want to understand what is going on.

Reference

Specific details of how particular things work. This is for users who are trying to use PINT and know what function or object or method they need but need the details of how it works.

How-tos

Detailed guides on how to accomplish specific things, for people who already know what questions to ask. Explanations and reference are not needed here but even experienced users can benefit from being pointed at the right way to do something, with fallbacks and troubleshooting advice.

This is based on the Django documentation structure, and it is intended both to help users find the correct information and to help documentation writers keep clear in our heads who we are writing for and what we are trying to communicate to them.

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