Structure and recommendations

The MAPPING program supports

• The manipulation (e.g. resampling), visualization and flagging of $uv$ tables;
• The imaging of $uv$ tables in dirty maps and beams;
• The deconvolution of dirty maps;
• The inclusion of short-spacings from 30m data into PdBI data;
• The visualization and analysis of spectra cubes, mainly by importation of the GREG capabilities;
• A simulator of ALMA continuum observations.

Those steps can be done in the following different ways

• A collection of tasks activated via the RUN command;
• A collection of SIC procedures (the GO and INPUT families) which either wraps the calling of tasks to ease the specifications of their input parameters (e.g. GO CLEAN) or code a complex series of native MAPPING commands to achieve a well-defined goal (e.g. GO UVALL);
• A collection of commands, either dedicated to image and deconvolution (the CLEAN$\backslash$ language) or implementing basic functionalities (the SIC$\backslash$ and GREG$\backslash$ families of languages);
• A collection of widgets grouped in the MAPPING main menu to interface most of the above possibilities.

We recommend the following general strategy to select the ``right'' way of doing one operation

• If a command of the CLEAN language implements this operation, always use it even though this possibility may also be implemented as a procedure and/or a task (e.g. CLEAN\UV_MAP, GO UV_MAP and RUN UV_MAP). This is because our minimum goal is the maintenance of the CLEAN language, not of the tasks (as long as the tasks do not share the same code as the CLEAN language).
• If a GO procedure or a widget and a task implement this operation, always prefer the use of the procedure or the widget over the use of the task as procedure or the widget were designed to ease the interaction with the task, i.e. they wrap the call of the task anyhow.
• If this operation is coded only as a task or a procedure, avoid reinvent the wheel, just use it.

There may be exceptions to those recommendations: Always follow the detailed indications of the manual.