| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17738] |
Fri, 12 November 1999 00:00 |
wbiagiot
Messages: 59
Registered: January 1999
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Member |
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Martin,
Your comments are true. I personally count comment lines with
actual code when I do a line count. Good comments take as much work as
good programming. It's always hard to convince your boss of that. :(
Thanks,
Bill B.
--
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do."
Oscar Gamble, NY Yankees
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
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| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17741 is a reply to message #17738] |
Fri, 12 November 1999 00:00  |
m218003
Messages: 56
Registered: August 1999
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Member |
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In article <80efte$nl2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
wbiagiot@suffolk.lib.ny.us writes:
> Hi IDL community,
>
> In the near term, I might be faced with porting my IDL application from
> a Win95/98 platform over to an Alpha/UNIX combination. [...][/color]
One could perhaps say that the amount of time you need to port from one
platform to the other is inversily proportional to the speed with which
you have written the program in the first place. Quick hacks tend to
make many assumptions which can be platform specific (such as
if !D.Name eq 'WIN' ... rather than e.g. if (!D.Flags AND 256) gt 0 )
and they tend to contain far less comments ;-)
As great as it is how much we can do with IDL, sometimes I wish the
dveloper would not have to be aware of things like color depth or
file path conventions. Didn't "they" promise us about 10 years ago that
by now computers would program themselves?
BTW: it doesn't hurt Windows when you use '/' instead of '\'.
Cheers,
Martin
--
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[
[[ Dr. Martin Schultz Max-Planck-Institut fuer Meteorologie [[
[[ Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg [[
[[ phone: +49 40 41173-308 [[
[[ fax: +49 40 41173-298 [[
[[ martin.schultz@dkrz.de [[
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[
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| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17744 is a reply to message #17738] |
Fri, 12 November 1999 00:00 |
wbiagiot
Messages: 59
Registered: January 1999
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Member |
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Thanks to David, Ronn and Liam for the confidence and the tips - all of
which will be duly notated. In one of the most recent versions of my
application, I managed to remove about 95% of all hardcoded widget
sizing parameters - you can't ever seem to get rid of *all* of them :) .
Funny about the comment concerning file paths. I remember going from
UNIX to Windows and using the wrong slash for months - arggg! I'll try
not to be a pest when I get turned on for that port.
BTW - Ronn, I still owe you the new super-super speedy correlation
routine. Will get that over soon.
Thanks,
Bill B.
--
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do."
Oscar Gamble, NY Yankees
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
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| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17755 is a reply to message #17738] |
Thu, 11 November 1999 00:00 |
Liam Gumley
Messages: 473
Registered: November 1994
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Senior Member |
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Liam Gumley wrote:
>
> wbiagiot@suffolk.lib.ny.us wrote:
>> In the near term, I might be faced with porting my IDL application from
>> a Win95/98 platform over to an Alpha/UNIX combination. I would like to
>> ask if anyone is currently using IDL in this configuration and if there
>> are any outstanding problems/inconsistancies or anything that I should
>> know. A couple of years ago, I was a Sun Solaris user but have lost my
>> edge after being numbed with MS Windows.
>
> A few things to watch out for:
[suggestions deleted]
One item I forgot to mention. It's possible that Alpha/Unix will use
vector fonts of a different size than Windows. To ensure that vector
fonts are the same size on both platforms:
First, on Windows:
IDL> xsize = !d.x_ch_size
IDL> ysize = !d.y_ch_size
IDL> print, xsize, ysize
Then on UNIX (using the xsize and ysize values from Windows):
IDL> device, set_character_size=[xsize, ysize]
I prefer to enter the following command in the IDL startup file on
whatever platform I'm using:
device, set_character_size=[10, 12]
Cheers,
Liam.
--
Liam E. Gumley
Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/~gumley
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| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17761 is a reply to message #17755] |
Thu, 11 November 1999 00:00 |
Liam Gumley
Messages: 473
Registered: November 1994
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Senior Member |
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wbiagiot@suffolk.lib.ny.us wrote:
> In the near term, I might be faced with porting my IDL application from
> a Win95/98 platform over to an Alpha/UNIX combination. I would like to
> ask if anyone is currently using IDL in this configuration and if there
> are any outstanding problems/inconsistancies or anything that I should
> know. A couple of years ago, I was a Sun Solaris user but have lost my
> edge after being numbed with MS Windows.
A few things to watch out for:
(1) Byte order
Although the Alpha/Unix combination has the same byte order as Windows,
now would be the time to make your application independent of host byte
order. I say this because if you get your application running smoothly
on Alpha/Unix, then someone will want to port it to another Unix
platform. If you've been dealing with ASCII, 8-bit, or netCDF/HDF etc.
data only, then there's no problem. However if you're reading or writing
any kind of multi-byte data, then I'd take some time to sort it out.
(2) 24-bit vs. 8-bit display modes
Whenever you port to another platform, you're bound to run into cases
where someone will have a different display depth (8 or 24). Now is the
time to make sure your application runs equally well in either display
mode.
(3) Files and directories
If your application filenames and directories, you'll need to make sure
the relevant routines are equally happy with Windows or Unix path
syntax.
(4) Widgets
If your application uses widgets, then you'll be ok as long as you've
mostly relied on IDL for widget positioning and sizing. If you've
tailored your widgets for Windows with lots of xsize, ysize, xoffset,
and yoffset keywords, you'll have some work to do on Alpha/Unix.
Cheers,
Liam.
--
Liam E. Gumley
Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/~gumley
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| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17763 is a reply to message #17755] |
Thu, 11 November 1999 00:00 |
ronn
Messages: 123
Registered: April 1999
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Senior Member |
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In article <80efte$nl2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
wbiagiot@suffolk.lib.ny.us wrote:
> Hi IDL community,
>
> In the near term, I might be faced with porting my IDL application
from
> a Win95/98 platform over to an Alpha/UNIX combination. I would like
to
> ask if anyone is currently using IDL in this configuration and if
there
> are any outstanding problems/inconsistancies or anything that I should
> know.
Hi Bill,
I move IDL code between windows 95, windows NT, Alpha UNIX, and SGI all
the time with no problem. The only gotcha's are if you have hardcoded
paths, or used explicit sizing on widget components. The GUI's will
still work, they just look funny. Some widgets (like sliders) do
behave slightly different between platforms, but normally you can live
with the differences. I have never noticed any different behaviour with
any internal routines.
-Ronn
--
Ronn Kling
Ronn Kling Consulting
www.rlkling.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
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| Re: Alpha/UNIX rehosting question [message #17765 is a reply to message #17755] |
Thu, 11 November 1999 00:00 |
davidf
Messages: 2866
Registered: September 1996
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Senior Member |
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Bill Biagiot (wbiagiot@suffolk.lib.ny.us) writes:
> In the near term, I might be faced with porting my IDL application from
> a Win95/98 platform over to an Alpha/UNIX combination. I would like to
> ask if anyone is currently using IDL in this configuration and if there
> are any outstanding problems/inconsistancies or anything that I should
> know. A couple of years ago, I was a Sun Solaris user but have lost my
> edge after being numbed with MS Windows.
>
> I realize that IDL is supposed to be platform independent, but it would
> appear to be a neat trick to have *everything* work on all platforms.
Well, there are only about 2 million variables. Perhaps
"everything" is overly optimistic. :-)
But I would say you can get darn close pretty easily
with IDL if you have taken some care in how you have
written your program to begin with. People who struggle
with this -- most of the time -- have not been particularly
careful with filenames, the sine qua non for writing
portable code. But if you have taken care of this, then
any "fudging" you have to do can usually be handled
in about 10-15 minutes.
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
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