| Re: Mac OSX [message #26980] |
Tue, 09 October 2001 12:17  |
K. Bowman
Messages: 330
Registered: May 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
A few points on the Mac OS X issue (that I am also making to RSI).
1. Due to steadily improving price/performance ratios, I expect that
we will continue to move away from proprietary Unix solutions (SGI,
Sun, IBM, DEC ... I mean Compaq) to Linux and Mac OS. I was planning
to *convert Unix licenses to Mac licenses*.
2. I am now concerned that Linux, AIX, IRIX, etc. versions of IDL will
also disappear (with no warning), perhaps one at a time, and that we
will be left with only a Windows version. I would guess that AIX and
IRIX will be the first to go. If that seems unlikely to you, consider
RSI's public statements of Mac support. Their about face is so blatant
that I am not inclined to have confidence in future RSI statements of
direction. (We have no history with Windows here, and I expect that we
would switch tools before we would switch to Windows.)
3. At present I primarily use IDL remotely on Unix from my Mac via
X-Windows. Compared to building a full OS X product, it should be
*easy* to port the Linux version of IDL to OS X (which is based on
FreeBSD). We could then run it from the command line and use X Windows
on the Mac. That would be relatively painless for them and for us. I
would rather use my own editor anyway (who wouldn't?). If I have to
use the development environment, I could run it under X Windows.
Ken Bowman
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #26986 is a reply to message #26985] |
Tue, 09 October 2001 09:49  |
Randall Skelton
Messages: 169
Registered: October 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, JD Smith wrote:
> I for one am significantly re-evaluating my future use of IDL as a
> consistent cross-platform solution, and I would urge you to do the same,
> and at the very least let RSI/Kodak know if their careless and negligent
> business practices have affected you.
I'm with you. The handling of this was absolutely terrible and while I
can understand that tough business decisions are needed in time of
difficult economics, RSI should have (at a minimum) made a formal
announcement to their Macintosh users. As per my last message, I am have
halted my IDL development as a direct result of this. Moreover, I am
urging our VMS/linux/Macintosh department users (site license of 100+) to
reconsider our allegiance to RSI/Kodak. I give a talk on atmospheric
retrieval simulations on Thursday and had planned to use IDL to do it
interactively... I've since made transparencies and obscured the fonts to
ensure that nobody knows it was originally done with IDL. Student
exercises were originally going to be done using IDL but I am now in the
process of converting scripts/functions into Matlab (the folks at
Mathworks were happy to give me a demo license for the 50+ lab computers).
In short, I'm really ticked off about this!
This may be one of the last times I am able to thank you, David, Pavel,
Craig and Jim P. for helping to explain IDL over the past year-- and to
think, I was just starting to understand IDL objects...
Cheers,
Randall
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #26987 is a reply to message #26986] |
Tue, 09 October 2001 09:24 |
Pavel A. Romashkin
Messages: 531
Registered: November 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
JD Smith wrote:
>
> I have it directly from former RSI/Kodak developer Thierry Faucounau
> (the sole Mac IDL developer), that this was a political/business
> decision, and that the OSX release was well on track, with no impeding
> technical hurdles. He was recently relieved of his position in concert
> with this apparently hastily-made decision.
I heard from Thierry, too. He is indeed THE expert on the Mac IDL, and
more than once casually solved problems I was facing, just by a one-line
email message. I have indications that OSX version has had advancements
over other platforms in widget implementation and many other aspects. It
would be nice if RSI at least, just out of respect to Thierry, released
the beta he has created, to let people see what they could have had. Oh,
licensing? Release it as a 7-second demo mode, of course :-(
I do have IDL on Unix and W2K, too, but this move makes me hesitant
about proceeding with using it. I will probably keep using IDL on my
Macs, too. But my news posts will be getting outdated version wise
pretty soon.
Pavel
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #26993 is a reply to message #26989] |
Tue, 09 October 2001 08:02 |
John-David T. Smith
Messages: 384
Registered: January 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Pavel Romashkin wrote:
>
> I am extremely sorry to say this, but it appears that Mac OSX is dropped as
> well as Mac development for other versions of OS as well. I have very little
> faith in success of complaining to RSI, because it must be Kodak who called
> to cancel Mac. But obviously, if we don't complain, this is how it will be.
> I know, not everyone liked my Mac related humor, and if IDL for Mac goes,
> not everyone will be at loss (besides Mac developers at RSI).
> But this is an alarming precedent. If they can so easily drop a platform, it
> is pretty scary, in my opinion.
> But again, these days our lives themselves cost so little - who cares about
> software :-(
>
It does look like the worst is true, Pavel, and I feel for you and for
all Mac users who took RSI/Kodak at face value when as recently as early
September they indicated all was on track for a phenomenal new OS X
release, not to mention their PR-laden joint appearances with Jobs et.
al. at Worldwide Developer Conferences in support of PowerPC Altivec
technology as an extremely promising new hardware platform.
The fact that they would so casually dismiss a product which they had
built up to such extravagant heights, disregarding the impact their
misleading emphasis on a new MacOSX version had, is frankly quite
disturbing. There are, I'm sure, not a few people who have altered
their development and purchasing plans in line with RSI/Kodak's
seemingly strong commitment to Mac IDL, and the modern new MacOSX
operating system.
I have it directly from former RSI/Kodak developer Thierry Faucounau
(the sole Mac IDL developer), that this was a political/business
decision, and that the OSX release was well on track, with no impeding
technical hurdles. He was recently relieved of his position in concert
with this apparently hastily-made decision.
With respect to the VMS IDL users who have been burned, remember that
your platform was on its way out at RSI for a long time, and that ample
notice was given. This is the completely opposite situation: a new
product which was hyped with multiple press releases and significant
developer support, and which was promised to be "a best-of-class
scientific visualization application" is quietly pulled from release
without so much as a warning, the sole Mac IDL developer is laid off,
and notification is made in a small footnote to the "What's New" page.
Did they think this would slip under our radar screen?
I for one am significantly re-evaluating my future use of IDL as a
consistent cross-platform solution, and I would urge you to do the same,
and at the very least let RSI/Kodak know if their careless and negligent
business practices have affected you.
JD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27004 is a reply to message #27001] |
Mon, 08 October 2001 21:14 |
Pavel A. Romashkin
Messages: 531
Registered: November 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
I am extremely sorry to say this, but it appears that Mac OSX is dropped as
well as Mac development for other versions of OS as well. I have very little
faith in success of complaining to RSI, because it must be Kodak who called
to cancel Mac. But obviously, if we don't complain, this is how it will be.
I know, not everyone liked my Mac related humor, and if IDL for Mac goes,
not everyone will be at loss (besides Mac developers at RSI).
But this is an alarming precedent. If they can so easily drop a platform, it
is pretty scary, in my opinion.
But again, these days our lives themselves cost so little - who cares about
software :-(
Sorry for a sad posting.
Cheers,
Pavel
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27014 is a reply to message #27004] |
Mon, 08 October 2001 13:35 |
Randall Skelton
Messages: 169
Registered: October 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
I must say that I am extremely disappointed to learn that RSI is no longer
planning to support Mac OS X and encourage everyone who shares my feelings
to CC all complaints and newsgroup discussions on this topic directly to
Mathew Powell and his coworkers at RSI.
Mathew Powell <mpowell@rsinc.com>
PR Manager
Research Systems
Boulder, CO
As for myself, I am also forwarding this news to friends at Mathorks and
Wavemtrics as there will undoubtedly be an opportunity for data
analysis/visualization packages on OS X. While I quite enjoyed using IDL
and have found it to be an excellent analysis tool, I am now planning to
halt my IDL development and begin working in C/C++/F95 again with NCAR GKS
and Gnuplot. I will also no longer be supporting the IDL code (including
a few widley distributed DLMs) I have written-- to those who have copies,
please accept my sincerest apology but I am in the 2nd year of my D.Phil.
and don't have time to support software that I am no longer planning to
use.
To put it mildly, to learn that OS X will not be supported is a real
problem for me. Luckily, I put off my personal IDL license purchase --
choosing to wait until the OS X beta appeared. My major requirement for
any commercial numerical analysis program I use is that it work on most
(if not all) of the major operating systems. Personally, I need to have
code which works on my Macintosh laptop and departmental Linux machines.
While I usually avoid running the various windows OS's, support for this
is required as many colleagues use my code under windows.
I don't usually relay emails from RSI to the group, but in this case I am
making an exception. Included below is an email I received just over a
month ago:
--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--== --==--==--==
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 13:52:29 -0600
From: Matthew Powell <mpowell@rsinc.com>
To: 'Randall Skelton' <rhskelto@atm.ox.ac.uk>
Cc: Clark Coffey <ccoffey@rsinc.com>, Harold Cline <harold@rsinc.com>
Subject: RE: IDL on Mac OS X
Hi Randall:
Thanks for your message.
We are planning on releasing IDL for Mac OS X in the 1st quarter of 2002.
Thank you for your interest in our technology.
Matthew
--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--== --==--==--==
Also, a message from May 2001 regarding some details of the OS X
implementation:
"Will the new version of IDL for OS X use the native BSD (i.e. unix)
underpinnings? At the moment I use socket libraries for unix as well as
multi-threaded (POSIX) C routines for some calculations. Will these be
supported?"
--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--== --==--==--==
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 16:08:50 -0600
From: Matthew Powell <mpowell@rsinc.com>
To: 'Randall Skelton' <rhskelto@atm.ox.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: IDL for OS X
Hi Randall:
My apologies for the delay in responding, and thanks for your message.
The answer to both of your questions is "yes".
I hope this is what you wanted to hear.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Cordially,
Matthew
--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--== --==--==--==
Being an optimist, I hope that this is merely a delay due to the present
economic conditions and not a cancellation of the entire RSI OS X product
line. IDL was, in my opinion, the best cross-platform analysis and
visualization package available.
Sincerely,
Randall Skelton
------------------------------------------------------------ -------------
University of Oxford rhskelto@atm.ox.ac.uk (email)
Atmospheric, Oceanic & Planetary Physics +44/0 1865 558 637 (home)
Clarendon Laboratory +44/0 1865 272 904 (office)
Parks Road, Oxford, UK, OX1 3PU
------------------------------------------------------------ -------------
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, K. Bowman wrote:
[snip]
> I went looking for the RSI press release from last spring announcing OS
> X support, but it seems to have disappeared from their web page. Then
> I found the "What's New in IDL 5.5" page.
>
> http://www.rsinc.com/idl/whatsnew.cfm
>
> Buried at the bottom is a table of current and future support and the
> following note:
>
> NOTE: RSI will be unable to provide IDL on the MAC OS X platform as
> previously planned.
>
> This is really a disaster for us. We have purchased new Macs based on
> RSI's previous press release promising OS X support. I am extremely
> disappointed that they are breaking their promise, but I expect that we
> are simply screwed.
>
> How about at least providing us with a Mac version that will run from
> the command line on OS X (using X-Windows)? That should be a
> relatively straightforward port.
>
> Ken Bowman
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27018 is a reply to message #27014] |
Mon, 08 October 2001 10:59 |
K. Bowman
Messages: 330
Registered: May 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
I know it's bad form to reply to one's own posting, but what the heck
...
I would like to suggest that everyone who would like to see IDL run
under Mac OS X contact RSI directly and ask them to reconsider their
decision to drop OS X support. A snail-mail letter will likely have
more effect, but please e-mail rather than doing nothing.
Contact Information:
Research Systems, Inc.
4990 Pearl East Circle
Boulder, CO 80301
USA
info@rsinc.com
I tracked down the original press release and have copied it below.
Ken
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Bernice Borrelli Matthew Powell
Eastman Kodak Company Research Systems, Inc.
716-726-5214 (voice) 303-413-3906 (voice)
716-253-5725 (fax) 303-786-9909 (fax)
Bernice.borrelli@kodak.com mpowell@rsinc.com
Editor contacts only
Research Systems, Inc. Announces IDL for Mac OS X
First major rewrite of IDL since the original Mac version in 1993
BOULDER, Colo. - March 21, 2001 - Research Systems, Inc., a leading
global developer of data visualization and application development
software, announced today they plan to release IDL�, the Interactive
Data Language, for Mac OS X.
"Both companies offer world class solutions and we feel IDL on Mac OS X
will enable our customers to solve their problems and achieve their
goals faster and easier than before," said Mike Scally, CEO of Research
Systems. "Mac OS X brings the speed, stability and power of Unix to
IDL's Macintosh users. In combination with the G4 processor with
Velocity Engine and hardware OpenGL support on cutting edge graphic
accelerators, IDL on Mac OS X is a best-of-class scientific
visualization application."
"Built on an open-source Unix-based foundation and offering features
such as OpenGL for spectacular 3D graphics, Mac OS X delivers
unprecedented stability and is the most technically advanced personal
computer operating system ever," said Clent Richardson, Apple's vice
president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "We are thrilled with
Research Systems' support of Mac OS X, and IDL on Mac OS X will be a
visualization application the scientific community will appreciate."
Research Systems' other products built on IDL will also support Mac OS
X including ENVI� (Environment for Visualizing Images),
RiverTools�(hydrology and terrain analysis), and VIP� (Visual IDL
Programming). This Mac OS X port will be based on IDL and plans include
a fully native reimplementation of IDL for Mac OS X using the Cocoa
frameworks. It will provide increased performance and stability with
plans for support of the Aqua interface, multi-processing, and
extensive Velocity Engine integration. Compatibility for previous IDL
versions on all platforms will be retained, allowing .pro code for
Windows to run on the Mac with faster speed.
IDL for Mac OS X will also leverage the BSD underpinnings of Mac OS X
and provide support for some of the best features available in the Unix
operating system without the complexity of Unix programming. Some of
these features include preemptive multi-processing, protected memory,
networking ability and high-speed I/O.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27020 is a reply to message #27019] |
Mon, 08 October 2001 09:57 |
John-David T. Smith
Messages: 384
Registered: January 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Richard Adams wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> Word here on the street is that despite early announcements of support
> for OSX there is now doubt that it will be supported. This must surely mean
> the end of IDL on the Macintosh. I for one - with a lab full of Macs and an
> admittedly small but growing number of IDL licences - think this is major
> bad news. The potential of an adult operating system (OSX/unix) and a great
> analysis environment (IDL) looked like a rosy future for our work. Am I the
> only one who thinks that dropping Mac support would be a bad move? If others
> feel the same then should we at least lobby for continued support for
> Macintosh computers?
>
> With best regards,
>
Hmm, this press release from March sure tells a different story:
http://www.rsinc.com/pr/detail.cfm?PressreleaseID=48&cid 110907&s=514
also, the beta announcement in early June stated:
"However, this will be a very limited release as our efforts are focused
towards the IDL5.5 MACOSX release."
So this would be a significant change of story. <PURE_CONJECTURE> My
guess is they might have been overambitious about their full re-write
for OSX, and are now faced with delaying 5.5 a few months to work out
the kinks in their (essentially from scratch) version, vs. just letting
it slide until 5.6 (or will it be 6.0?). </PURE_CONJECTURE> I really
doubt they will drop Mac support entirely, especially after going on
stage with Steve at the WWDC in 1999, and raving about Altivec.
JD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27095 is a reply to message #26980] |
Wed, 10 October 2001 00:34 |
R.Bauer
Messages: 1424
Registered: November 1998
|
Senior Member |
|
|
"K. Bowman" wrote:
>
> A few points on the Mac OS X issue (that I am also making to RSI).
>
> 1. Due to steadily improving price/performance ratios, I expect that
> we will continue to move away from proprietary Unix solutions (SGI,
> Sun, IBM, DEC ... I mean Compaq) to Linux and Mac OS. I was planning
> to *convert Unix licenses to Mac licenses*.
>
> 2. I am now concerned that Linux, AIX, IRIX, etc. versions of IDL will
> also disappear (with no warning), perhaps one at a time, and that we
> will be left with only a Windows version. I would guess that AIX and
> IRIX will be the first to go. If that seems unlikely to you, consider
> RSI's public statements of Mac support. Their about face is so blatant
> that I am not inclined to have confidence in future RSI statements of
> direction. (We have no history with Windows here, and I expect that we
> would switch tools before we would switch to Windows.)
Dear Ken
last year I met David Stern in Darmstadt. This was before the idl5.4
release.
At this time I was informed that idl5.4 for AIX will be the last
Version. One of the reasons is the migration from IBM to linux.
I remember that several times it was discussed how difficulty
it is to support more and more platforms or older and older
platforms.
We ourselfs are in a process to migrate from AIX to linux PCs
too so this statement was bad for us but not as bas as it could be.
Then with the idl5.4 release installed on AIX everytime idl
was started we got a message that this is the last supported
version for AIX.
We and I believe some more others asked them to build IDL5.5 for
AIX too and you are seeing the result. IDL5.5 will be builded
for AIX too.
There was no discussion about AIX and IDL in this newsgroup as
I remember. I hope you all give your arguments to RSI too.
regards
Reimar
--
Reimar Bauer
Institut fuer Stratosphaerische Chemie (ICG-1)
Forschungszentrum Juelich
email: R.Bauer@fz-juelich.de
http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg1/
============================================================ ======
a IDL library at ForschungsZentrum Juelich
http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg1/idl_icglib/idl_lib_intro.h tml
http://www.fz-juelich.de/zb/text/publikation/juel3786.html
============================================================ ======
read something about linux / windows
http://www.suse.de/de/news/hotnews/MS.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27121 is a reply to message #26986] |
Tue, 09 October 2001 13:58 |
John-David T. Smith
Messages: 384
Registered: January 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Randall Skelton wrote:
>
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, JD Smith wrote:
>
>> I for one am significantly re-evaluating my future use of IDL as a
>> consistent cross-platform solution, and I would urge you to do the same,
>> and at the very least let RSI/Kodak know if their careless and negligent
>> business practices have affected you.
>
> I'm with you. The handling of this was absolutely terrible and while I
> can understand that tough business decisions are needed in time of
> difficult economics, RSI should have (at a minimum) made a formal
> announcement to their Macintosh users. As per my last message, I am have
> halted my IDL development as a direct result of this. Moreover, I am
> urging our VMS/linux/Macintosh department users (site license of 100+) to
> reconsider our allegiance to RSI/Kodak. I give a talk on atmospheric
> retrieval simulations on Thursday and had planned to use IDL to do it
> interactively... I've since made transparencies and obscured the fonts to
> ensure that nobody knows it was originally done with IDL. Student
> exercises were originally going to be done using IDL but I am now in the
> process of converting scripts/functions into Matlab (the folks at
> Mathworks were happy to give me a demo license for the 50+ lab computers).
> In short, I'm really ticked off about this!
>
> This may be one of the last times I am able to thank you, David, Pavel,
> Craig and Jim P. for helping to explain IDL over the past year-- and to
> think, I was just starting to understand IDL objects...
Here's a funny quote from one of the topmost linked stories on the
rsinc.com webpage, titled: "IDL Helps Teach Children With Hands-On
Universe":
Dr. Pennypacker knew he needed a powerful application that was
simple enough for even a kindergartner to use, and was based on
technology that is well-supported, highly extensible and
compatible with both PCs and Macs. He selected IDL...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What hath pointy-head marketoids wrought?
JD
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: Mac OSX [message #27200 is a reply to message #26985] |
Fri, 12 October 2001 07:20 |
Dennis Boccippio
Messages: 23
Registered: July 2000
|
Junior Member |
|
|
In article <tIGw7.306$AE5.5841@shaw-ty1>,
"Dick Jackson" <dick@d-jackson.com> wrote:
>> I asked the techs opinion and she said that
>> the only real chance of re-instating the development
>> would come if pretty much all Mac users of IDL
>> (and better yet _potential_ mac users of IDL made
>> their feelings known.
>
> Does anyone else agree that PC and Unix IDL users *also* benefit from the
> fact that IDL reaches to the Mac platform? To my mind, knowing that code I
> develop on PC can (in general) run on Mac as well adds value to my work, and
> I'd think it reasonable to consider some of PC and Unix licence/maintenance
> fees as going to support Mac development.
>
Absolutely - in fact, knowing that IDL code is more or less
cross-platform deployable was a major factor for us in deciding to
develop and release in-house IDL analysis code to our external users.
RSI's prior strong track record on stability and cross-platform support
*had* been a significant factor in deciding to commit signficant
hardware, skill training, and code development time to IDL. A midcourse
platform support change radically alters the company's reputation and
future viability as a solution-of-choice, IMHO...
- Dennis Boccippio, NASA/MSFC SD-60
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
