| Re: Mac OSX [message #27014 is a reply to message #27004] |
Mon, 08 October 2001 13:35   |
Randall Skelton
Messages: 169
Registered: October 2000
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Senior Member |
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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?"
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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
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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
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