| IDL authors - get cracking! [message #36084] |
Tue, 19 August 2003 06:04 |
Richard French
Messages: 173
Registered: December 2000
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Senior Member |
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I've just installed IDL6.0 and I've spent a day reading the iTools
documentation. There's clearly a lot to learn. What I have not found in the
documentation from RSI are:
1) simple tutorials that go through a full example of using each of the
iTools on a specific set of data and illustrate the full cycle of events
from starting things off to saving the results in a file. I have in mind
something like a training session an hour long on each iTool so that you can
be given a particular task: "Make a nice plot of this ascii data file and
save it as a postscript file, with the following axis labels and legends",
for example. If such tutorials already exist, I missed something, and would
appreciate it if someone would point out where they are.
2) Similar tutorials for developing iTool applications. I've read the iTool
Developer's Guide, which has throughout comments such as "This example is
just to show you how incredibly easy it is to develop an iTool application",
but I am still having trouble figuring out how to put all of the code
fragments together into a real working example. I admit that I have never
written an IDL object program, and I am willing to believe that using iTools
is, as RSI puts it, a "gentle introduction" to OOP. However, I could
certainly benefit from a simple example that includes all the steps from
beginning to end of making a new iTool or modifying one that exists.
David Fanning, Liam Gumley, and Ron Kling have all written great IDL guides
that show how to do such things in plain old IDL. I'd be happy to pay for
new editions of these books that include examples for 'the rest of us' who
have never done OOP, who have listened patiently to David's comments
"EVERYTHING is EASY when you use objects!" but have not yet been convinced.
If iTools really does make OOP a lot easier, and is a true improvement on
LiveTools (which I always found too slow to be useful), then I'm willing to
contribute to the wealth of this trio of illustrious authors, or others, who
will take the time to show us how to take advantage of these new
capabilities.
While we're on the subject of iTools, I'd like to hear comments from those
of you who have succeeded in figuring out how to use them productively. What
cool things can you do? What features are missing?
Thanks! and let us know the publication dates of these new books, David,
Liam, and Ron, so that we can put in our orders now.
Dick French
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