Messages from Usenet group comp.lang.idl-pvwave, compiled by Paulo Penteado
Hi all- I'm running IDL 5.4 on Windows 2k. I have been trying to figure out if there is a way to change from the default IDL editor to a different one, such as gvim. Also it appears there is no way to run IDL from the command line under windows, is there any way to do so? Any help on getting IDL to work better with command line utils(in particular cygwin) would be helpful. thanks -tim
> So this is most probably a stupid question, but why not chuck windows > and use one of the approximately zillion Linux flavors out there? You > seem to be using your win-box mostly as a u*x box anyways, so why not > just go that one last step? I've got an even better UNIX box on my desk. It's called a Mac, with OS X. Actually, I never realized that IDL for Windows doesn't have a command-line interface until I read this thread. How can you all tolerate the hassle this causes? (Now I understand why my PC colleagues use Matlab.) IDL's Classic Mac interface is a great joy to use, complete with command line (including command completion), a wonderful editor with syntax coloring (even on the command line), and loads of diagnostics. No need for bizarre kludges. I especially appreciate the way program errors or interruptions bring your cursor right to the offending line or stop point in an editor window. With Classic support going away, the new Mac interface (now overdue) will be an Xwindows (XFree86, actually) implementation--which also runs beautifully on the Mac. I hope they can maintain some of the great features from the Mac IDL environment, it's a great time saver over programming in a Linux/Unix emacs/vi/whatever world. With Linux, watch out of annoying, picky widget/window/color/graphics/font issues and inconsistencies. In my cross-platform life, I've spent days working out problems for Linux that don't exist on the Mac. My 2-cents, M. Katz
MKatz843@onebox.com (M. Katz) wrote in message news:<4a097d6a.0207092347.4620d5e5@posting.google.com>... > IDL's Classic Mac interface is a great joy to > use, complete with command line (including command completion), a > wonderful editor with syntax coloring (even on the command line), and > loads of diagnostics. No need for bizarre kludges. I especially > appreciate the way program errors or interruptions bring your cursor > right to the offending line or stop point in an editor window. All of which are old hat in emacs's idlwave environment... > it's a great time saver > over programming in a Linux/Unix emacs/vi/whatever world. It's been a couple years since you've touched a unix, box, hasn't it? > With Linux, watch out of annoying, picky > widget/window/color/graphics/font issues and inconsistencies. In my > cross-platform life, I've spent days working out problems for Linux > that don't exist on the Mac. Well - that seems like a slightly unfair comparison - obviously there's no debugging incompatible graphics for computers that force you to use one particular type of graphics card. The problem isn't terribly new: if you allow many different xyz, then you're buying that freedom with having to support those xyz and with having to write software that is independent of them. Half of the Linux newsgroups are full with win-people and mac-people complaining about the sheer openness of linux and half of the win- and mac- NGs are full of linux people whining how they're restricted in their choice of xyz's. My coding philosophy has always been to support the "most common" things and then the "most up-to-date" things. And if you get slightly funny colors on your monitor, maybe I'll have time to provide for your case or then again maybe you should't have bought that WeirdoXP IdioSyc Marc II graphics card that nobody has ever heard of and for which there exists no documentation on the net...
"M. Katz" wrote: > >> So this is most probably a stupid question, but why not chuck windows >> and use one of the approximately zillion Linux flavors out there? You >> seem to be using your win-box mostly as a u*x box anyways, so why not >> just go that one last step? > > I've got an even better UNIX box on my desk. It's called a Mac, with > OS X. > > Actually, I never realized that IDL for Windows doesn't have a > command-line interface until I read this thread. How can you all > tolerate the hassle this causes? (Now I understand why my PC > colleagues use Matlab.) IDL's Classic Mac interface is a great joy to > use, complete with command line (including command completion), a > wonderful editor with syntax coloring (even on the command line), and > loads of diagnostics. No need for bizarre kludges. I especially > appreciate the way program errors or interruptions bring your cursor > right to the offending line or stop point in an editor window. > > With Classic support going away, the new Mac interface (now overdue) > will be an Xwindows (XFree86, actually) implementation--which also > runs beautifully on the Mac. I hope they can maintain some of the > great features from the Mac IDL environment, it's a great time saver > over programming in a Linux/Unix emacs/vi/whatever world. > > With Linux, watch out of annoying, picky > widget/window/color/graphics/font issues and inconsistencies. In my > cross-platform life, I've spent days working out problems for Linux > that don't exist on the Mac. > > My 2-cents, > M. Katz Dear M.Katz, I am waiting since a few years for a new IDLDE editor for unix. A few years ago they have added color coding to idlde and have removed this by idl5.4. With the kde it should not quite complicated if you have a look at kate to set up an environment which it's nearly the same functionality. Someone who knows emacs and the many plug-ins available and the idl mode has much more functionality as the idlde can give. With emacs you can directly exchange source with a cvs archive and show the differnces. This is one more feature the next idlde should have. I don't know why they don't pay some money to some kde programmers to develop a really new idlde. Many things could be taken from kdevstudio. Reimar -- Reimar Bauer Institut fuer Stratosphaerische Chemie (ICG-I) Forschungszentrum Juelich email: R.Bauer@fz-juelich.de ------------------------------------------------------------ ------- a IDL library at ForschungsZentrum Juelich http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg1/idl_icglib/idl_lib_intro.h tml ============================================================ =======