| Re: support (lack thereof) for Mac version of IDL5.5.1 [message #28446] |
Thu, 13 December 2001 10:08  |
Richard Younger
Messages: 43
Registered: November 2000
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Member |
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Judy Karpen wrote:
>
> BTW, you can be snide if you wish, but it's YOUR (the taxpayers')
> money that is being wasted here -- I'm a US government employee, so
> my IDL license etc is paid for out of a gov't grant.
I suspect that a very sizable majority of the IDL licenses out there
come from gov't money, whether directly (NOAA, NASA) or indirectly (via
NSF or DOD grant, or foreign equivalent), both in the US and overseas.
All you have to do is look at the email addresses of those regularly on
the newsgroup.
> And I still feel ripped off even though it isn't "my" money.....
Well, you do have to deal with the frustration, so it's understandable.
Still, there aren't that many snide comments made here: I would prefer
to characterize the tone of the newsgroup as flip and snipe back with a
smile.
I do hope that you can convince RSI to take care of those aggravating
bugs.
Best,
Rich
--
Richard Younger
Electro-Optical Materials and Devices Group
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Mail Stop C-130
244 Wood St.
Lexington, MA 02421
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| Re: support (lack thereof) for Mac version of IDL5.5.1 [message #28476 is a reply to message #28446] |
Wed, 12 December 2001 08:06  |
Judy Karpen
Messages: 2
Registered: December 2001
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Junior Member |
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Sorry JD, but that doesnt excuse charging big bucks for buggy software. If it
were released ages ago and I just found some minor remaining bugs, I'd agree
there is no reason for them to fix it. However, v5.5 was released quite
recently with bugs (and the patch 5.5.1 introduced other bugs while fixing
the READ problem), so IMHO RSI still owes it to users to make it work.
I'm not holding my breath for the OSX version, either..... As long as
Retrospect and other useful software/hardware don't work under OSX, many Mac
users are delaying the switch from OS9.x. BTW, you can be snide if you wish,
but it's YOUR (the taxpayers') money that is being wasted here -- I'm a US
government employee, so my IDL license etc is paid for out of a gov't grant.
And I still feel ripped off even though it isn't "my" money.....
JD Smith wrote:
> [quote snipped]
> I do hate to quench a grassroots movement so early in its life cycle,
> but you should know that v5.5 is the last Mac version being released:
> this code is being end-of-lifed. Luckily, the MacOSX-as-Unix version of
> IDL will be released sometime soon, no doubt providing a fresh supply of
> new bugs to fuel civil unrest.
>
> Good luck,
>
> JD
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| Re: support (lack thereof) for Mac version of IDL5.5.1 [message #28483 is a reply to message #28476] |
Tue, 11 December 2001 15:40 |
John-David T. Smith
Messages: 384
Registered: January 2000
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Senior Member |
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Judy Karpen wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I recently upgraded to IDL version 5.5.1 for MacOS, and have found a few
> bugs. Some are just minor irritations (the missing final character when
> scrolling back through the command line, e.g.), but others, such as
> nonfunctioning command history saving from earlier sessions, are more
> aggravating. When I contacted RSI about this, I was told that they've
> laid off their only Mac programmer, so there is no way to fix these
> problems. The tech support person was quite sympathetic and as helpful
> as possible, but their best suggestion was to revert to IDL 5.4!
>
> Now, we Mac users are paying the same premium prices as everyone else to
> have tech support and an IDL license, so I feel quite ripped off. We can
> still get tech support about programming questions, but when their
> latest software doesn't work right we are stuck with it. Cute. My
> purpose in posting this is not just to whine, though, but to urge the
> other Mac users with IDL to complain loudly about any bugs you've found
> in v5.5; perhaps if we hand RSI a critical mass of complaints they will
> hire someone to fix these problems. Thanks for your help!
I do hate to quench a grassroots movement so early in its life cycle,
but you should know that v5.5 is the last Mac version being released:
this code is being end-of-lifed. Luckily, the MacOSX-as-Unix version of
IDL will be released sometime soon, no doubt providing a fresh supply of
new bugs to fuel civil unrest.
Good luck,
JD
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| Re: support (lack thereof) for Mac version of IDL5.5.1 [message #29712 is a reply to message #28446] |
Fri, 08 March 2002 07:02 |
Wolf Schweitzer
Messages: 21
Registered: October 2001
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Junior Member |
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There always is the price/anger/reply track, and it's ok, however it
does not solve the problem.
What I do about the command line thing while fiddling with getting stuff
right and going back and forth is:
Add a couple of empty spaces at the end of the line before I hit
<enter>. That way, all that gets "lost" by the IDL551bug is one of these
spaces and you can work with your previous command normally.
Wolf Schweitzer, Zuerich / Switzerland
In article <3C18EE9E.4852BB05@ll.mit.edu>,
Richard Younger <younger@ll.mit.edu> wrote:
> Judy Karpen wrote:
>>
>> BTW, you can be snide if you wish, but it's YOUR (the taxpayers')
>> money that is being wasted here -- I'm a US government employee, so
>> my IDL license etc is paid for out of a gov't grant.
>
> I suspect that a very sizable majority of the IDL licenses out there
> come from gov't money, whether directly (NOAA, NASA) or indirectly (via
> NSF or DOD grant, or foreign equivalent), both in the US and overseas.
> All you have to do is look at the email addresses of those regularly on
> the newsgroup.
>
>> And I still feel ripped off even though it isn't "my" money.....
>
> Well, you do have to deal with the frustration, so it's understandable.
> Still, there aren't that many snide comments made here: I would prefer
> to characterize the tone of the newsgroup as flip and snipe back with a
> smile.
>
> I do hope that you can convince RSI to take care of those aggravating
> bugs.
>
> Best,
> Rich
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