| Knew this would happen after Kodac purchased RSI [message #27114] |
Tue, 09 October 2001 14:26  |
Martin Otte
Messages: 4
Registered: October 2001
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Junior Member |
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Just a note from a lurker who has read this group for many years mainly
for the great IDL programing hints and tips.
From previous messages on this group and info on RSI's web page,
it looks like version 5.5 will be the last to be supported on Macs at
all (either in classic mode or OS X). I had a gut feeling this would
happen after Kodac purchased RSI. After I finish my current project, I
will now definitely no longer be using IDL.
I already compiled netCDF, vis5D, and NCAR Graphics on OS X, and will
be increasingly using these and other open-source programs instead of
IDL, especially as OS X and the free X-windows server mature.
Even if you are not a macintosh user, please email your disapproval to
info@rsinc.com. My email follows. Does anyone know of an email address
at Kodac to send a similar email?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx
Dear Sir,
I am greatly dissapointed at the lack of Macintosh support in future
versions of IDL.
I was going to talk my next employer into purchasing linux licenses of
IDL for the workstations at work along with a new license for my
Macintosh at home, but we will probably no longer be purchasing or
using IDL.
One of the best features of IDL was that I could work with the same
datasets and IDL programs on our Solaris workstations at work or on my
Mac laptop at home or on Windows PC's. This will soon no longer be the
case. I'm sure that many other people have chosen IDL because of the
ease at which you could swith platforms.
I started using IDL with an old student version for the Mac, and then
began using IDL on Sun workstations. While the Macintosh platform may
not have your greatest market share, I am sure that many IDL users have
used the macintosh version at one time or the other.
As Apple copmputers have matured and now rival expensive workstations in
terms of computational power, the Macintosh is a great platform to
exploit the features of IDL. With IDL, I could do the same analysis on
my home Mac as I could on our expensive workstations at work.
Reading your latest press release, it would seem that IDL version 5.5
will be the last version for the macintosh and no version of IDL for OS
X will be available. I understand the difficulty in porting IDL to OS
X, and would not be too dissapointed if an OS X version of IDL was
delayed indefinitely until the economy improves as long as the
"classic" version of IDL for Macintosh was continued.
With the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X and the availability of free
or open-source data-processing, graphing, and visualization software
(such as Vis-5D, GRADS, IBM data explorer, NCAR graphics), there are
many other alternatives that one has to work interchangeably between
Macintosh, linux PCs, and Solaris workstations. IDL will no longer be
one of the alternatives that I use.
Sincerely,
Martin Otte
Department of Meteorology
Penn State University
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