| Re: HDF5 and IDL [message #38321] |
Thu, 04 March 2004 02:31  |
hcp
Messages: 41
Registered: August 1995
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In article <MPG.1ab03f8b981bcf679896d5@news.frii.com>, David Fanning <david@dfanning.com> writes:
|> Organizations that write software for free spend even less
|> money and resources (is it possible!?) on technical writers
|> than reputable gouge-the-public software companies. So even
|> though there is an "official" release of new software, that
|> doesn't mean anyone can use it. Typically there are bugs,
|> the documentation appears to have been out-sourced to a
|> small African country, and sometimes you just run into
|> unexpected "features" that leave you utterly perplexed for
|> days. When you know no one is getting rich, you are more
|> tolerant. ("Harry probably knocked this out over his corned
|> beef sandwich the other day. Let's cut him some slack.")
This may be an accurate description of many free software projects.
It is rather unfair to imply that HDF5 is like this, though. HDF5 has
its problems: it is large, baroque, hard to compile the Fortran 9x
interface and has taken a while to stabilize. However it is a large,
centrally organized, widely used product and has sufficient documentation
that a sizeable chunk of the Pacific northwest is denuded of trees
every time someone prints it out.
Hugh
--
============S=u=p=p=o=r=t===D=e=b=i=a=n===http://www.debian. org==========
Dr. Hugh C. Pumphrey, School of GeoSciences
The University of Edinburgh, EDINBURGH EH9 3JZ, Scotland
OBDisclaimer: The views expressed herein are mine, not those of UofE.
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