comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Messages from Usenet group comp.lang.idl-pvwave, compiled by Paulo Penteado

Home » Public Forums » archive » Re: IDL Survey Comments
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Re: IDL Survey Comments [message #5369] Fri, 01 December 1995 00:00
Andreas Oberreuter is currently offline  Andreas Oberreuter
Messages: 2
Registered: December 1995
Junior Member
> gotwols@strdev.jhuapl.edu (Bruce Gotwols) writes:
>
>
>
> [comments deleted]
>
>> I must agree that many of the older, "core" routines don't work very well:
>> map_set, map_continents, contour, ...
>>
>> So I get upset with the development of new features while the
>> old ones sit around gathering dust. A friend of my is fond
>> of saying that "software left unattended rots!"
>>
>> Is anyone listening out there?
>>
>> --
>> Andrew F. Loughe (afl@cdc.noaa.gov)

I am listening and I agree with You, too.

Because of this I send last week a detailed letter to our
German distributor (CreaSo) of IDL, to think about the
philosophy of IDL in the future, together with RSI.

IDL has a chance, if it is humble enough to learn from many
PD-Products (GNU-Plot, VIS5D, XVGR) and from professional,
but relative cheap (campus licences) products as NCARGraphics,
EXCEL, Explorer, AVS, Performer ... how to serve his users with
good GUIs and stable modules.

Let's hope the best for IDL 7.0 (thinking like Bill Gates)


Dr. Andreas Oberreuter
EURAD-Administration
Postadress: University of Cologne (GERMANY)
Institute of Geophysics and Meteorology
- Project EURAD -
Atmospheric Research
Dr.Andreas Oberreuter, Aachener Strasse 201-209, D-50931 Cologne
Phone: ++49 (221) 400 22 20 / 400 22 58 (Secretary)
Fax: ++49 (221) 400 23 20
E-Mail: ao@eurad.uni-koeln.de

--
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bitte als mailadress ao@eurad.uni-koeln.de benutzen
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please use as mailadress ao@eurad.uni-koeln.de
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: IDL Survey Comments [message #5377 is a reply to message #5369] Wed, 29 November 1995 00:00 Go to previous message
bowman is currently offline  bowman
Messages: 121
Registered: September 1991
Senior Member
In article <49ic4s$pi7@aplinfo.jhuapl.edu>, gotwols@strdev.jhuapl.edu
(Bruce Gotwols) wrote:

> 1. Provide better tools for large projects ...

I would like to see a better development environment as well, plus such
things as 32-bit integers as the default. I don't envi (sorry for the
pun) them trying to maintain backwards compatibility though. They would
likely face the same uproar that Fortran users unleashed when the
standards committee proposed 'deprecating' some features (there are still
a lot of computed GOTO's out there).

> 2. Provide modern support for presentation quality graphics:
> Ditch the Hershey caligraphy set and support on screen characters properly!
> Any characters written to the screen or to a Tiff file look like they are
> straight out of the 70's. IDL has not kept up in this area and it is
> gradually forcing us away from IDL for all applications involving
presentation
> graphics. In all cases where I need a Tiff file to send to our $25K Kodak dye
> sub color printer I have to resort to Adobe Photoshop to get decent lettering.

Won't your printer take PostScript files? I used to import IDL graphics
into Canvas and re-do labels, etc., but now I go straight from IDL to the
printer. It is a minor hassle to get all the fonts and sizes right, but I
much prefer a programmable way to make presentation graphs to fiddling
around in a graphics program.

Regards, Ken Bowman

--
Kenneth P. Bowman, Assoc. Prof. 409-862-4060
Department of Meteorology 409-862-4132 fax
Texas A&M University bowman@csrp.tamu.edu
College Station, TX 77843-3150
Re: IDL Survey Comments [message #5381 is a reply to message #5377] Wed, 29 November 1995 00:00 Go to previous message
Andy Loughe is currently offline  Andy Loughe
Messages: 174
Registered: November 1995
Senior Member
Kevin Spencer wrote:
>
> gotwols@strdev.jhuapl.edu (Bruce Gotwols) writes:
>
>> RSI sent me a survey today and asked for my opinion on a variety of
>> IDL related topics. This got me to thinking, and I composed the
>> comments appended below. I wonder how many other IDL users share some of these
>> same thoughts?
>
> [comments deleted]
>

I must agree that many of the older, "core" routines don't work very well:
map_set, map_continents, contour, ...

So I get upset with the development of new features while the
old ones sit around gathering dust. A friend of my is fond
of saying that "software left unattended rots!"

Is anyone listening out there?

--
Andrew F. Loughe (afl@cdc.noaa.gov)
University of Colorado, CIRES * Campus Box 449 * Boulder, CO 80309
phone: (303) 492-0707 fax: (303) 497-7013
Re: IDL Survey Comments [message #5384 is a reply to message #5377] Wed, 29 November 1995 00:00 Go to previous message
kspencer is currently offline  kspencer
Messages: 21
Registered: December 1993
Junior Member
gotwols@strdev.jhuapl.edu (Bruce Gotwols) writes:

> RSI sent me a survey today and asked for my opinion on a variety of
> IDL related topics. This got me to thinking, and I composed the
> comments appended below. I wonder how many other IDL users share some of these
> same thoughts?

[comments deleted]

I for one share your criticisms of IDL. Let's hope they take notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Spencer
Cognitive Psychophysiology Laboratory and Beckman Institute
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
kspencer@p300.cpl.uiuc.edu / kspencer@psych.uiuc.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------
  Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Previous Topic: Re: Importing IDL Postscript output into Windows apps
Next Topic: Digital filter in IDL

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Wed Oct 08 19:50:55 PDT 2025

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.00590 seconds