Restructure package

[aknierim]

• Restructure package to be in line with our other packages
• Expose pyvisgrid.core.gridder.Gridder class as a plugin compatible with pyvisgen, see also Add plugin support to pyvisgen pyvisgen#108
• Make casatools optional dependency (casa optional dependency group)
• Add docs

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 34.39%. Comparing base (098bd9e) to head (5c0a316).

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main      #21      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   32.82%   34.39%   +1.57%     
==========================================
  Files           6        8       +2     
  Lines         390      407      +17     
  Branches       70       70              
==========================================
+ Hits          128      140      +12     
- Misses        258      263       +5     
  Partials        4        4              

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[tgross03]

Is there a reason for the removal of casatools as a default dependency? As Measurement Sets are the standard for many of the largest observatories (ALMA, VLA, MOJAVE / VLBA etc.), we should be supporting it by default.

[aknierim]

I don't see the point of having casatools a dependency and not an optional dependency if it is used in a single method. This is why I included the try except block here:

pyvisgrid/src/pyvisgrid/core/gridder.py

Lines 13 to 18 in ba3950f

	try:
	from casatools.table import table
	CASA_AVAIL = True
	except ModuleNotFoundError:
	CASA_AVAIL = False

This checks whether casatools is available and raises a ModuleNotFoundError later on if the user has not installed casatools but tries to access the Gridder.ms classmethod:

pyvisgrid/src/pyvisgrid/core/gridder.py

Lines 457 to 462 in ba3950f

	if not CASA_AVAIL:
	raise ModuleNotFoundError(
	"Cannot import casatools. Please make sure "
	"you installed pyvisgrid with the optional "
	"casa dependency (uv pip install 'pyvisgrid[casa]')!"
	)

If users want casa support, they can just install the casa extra. This is something that has to be added to the docs, of course.

[tgross03]

I don't see the point of having casatools a dependency and not an optional dependency if it is used in a single method. This is why I included the try except block here:

The gridding of measurement sets is a central feature of the package since it is one of the most common ways to save visibility data. I think that we shouldn't use optional dependencies if important features need the contained packages. In case of something like radiotools it is sensible to include casatools as optional since the package contains many modules which do not need it. But in this case one of the three main methods to use for gridding requires it.
Since we want our software to be accessible and easy-to-use for people outside of the radionets package framework, it is better to avoid additional installation steps to enable a core feature of the Gridding.

[aknierim]

Additional installation steps? Give me a break.
Please tell me where

$ pip install pyvisgrid[casa]

is an additional installation step.

It simply does not make sense for a package that is used in exactly one single method, and that restricts the python version compatibility, to be a dependency if we could just add it as an extra. Besides, the main reason pyvisgrid exists is still pyvisgen.

[tgross03]

Additional installation steps?

The base package installation does not include it, which means that prior knowledge of the additional package dependency group casa is required. One could argue about whether this qualifies as an "installation step", but for external users it likely does feel like extra effort compared to a simple pip install pyvisgrid, since they also need to know that casa is not included by default even though it’s a central feature.

It simply does not make sense for a package that is used in exactly one single method, and that restricts the python version compatibility

On the "one method" point, I think it's a bit broader: The Gridder class has four non-internal methods beyond plotting and three of those are classmethods, of which one is for casa.
After testing it seems that casatools is also working with python=3.11 and python=3.12 at minimum, which means that the compatibility for higher versions is not restricted by it.

[aknierim]

The base package installation does not include it, which means that prior knowledge of the additional package dependency group casa is required.

That is exactly what the docs and the README are for. Again, this is something you explain in the docs, so users can choose what version to install with what extras. And adding [casa] to an install command you can also copy from the docs is no effort.

On the "one method" point, I think it's a bit broader: The Gridder class has four non-internal methods beyond plotting and three of those are classmethods, of which one is for casa.

And two of which are not. So I do not see your point here.

After testing it seems that casatools is also working with python=3.11 and python=3.12 at minimum, which means that the compatibility for higher versions is not restricted by it.

Yes, but for py313, for example, it is not. So it is restrictive.