General impressions of CASA so far

The task-based system greatly improves the interactive (ie, non-scripted)
experience of CASA.  In this test I tested it exclusively in this manner.
I think the currently implemented tasks show great promise -- it allows
the most common operations to be done with minimal typing and does not
preclude use of tools for the more arcane uses.  My only fear is that
users will want to stop learning once they master tasks and that the tools
will appear as developer-only terrain to users.  Thus I think some
examples of tool-based operations will need to appear in the cookbook,
even if tasks can handle a majority of the necessary operations.

The global nature of the parameters is both good and bad, and I don't
think there exists a perfect compromise.  Users will have to remain wary
of their inputs.  I do think that in its current state it is more
intuitive than the AIPS use of parameters as in that case sometimes
parameters appear to change and sometimes they don't.

For me the ipython interface is a welcome change.  There are a few things
that do take some getting used to though.  One is the error messages
generated by use of incorrect syntax, such as forgetting a ' or = .  They
appear overly complex, but do give good feedback to the user. For the most
part problems that occur within tasks trap errors and provide reasonable
responses, but this is still not perfect and is something that will
continue to require work.