| Re: Where is GUI builder in IDL7? [message #58949] |
Wed, 27 February 2008 08:59 |
Doug Edmundson
Messages: 58
Registered: November 2005
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Member |
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David Fanning wrote:
> jigga1206@gmail.com writes:
>
>> I'm probably going to get slammed for bringing this up, but why did
>> ITTVIS remove the GUI builder?
My colleagues have volunteered me to reply. ;-)
David is right about the onerous nature of cross-platform development.
In the case of the GUI Builder, it was Windows IDE only and couldn't be
plugged into Eclipse. Rest assured, it's not that we think GUI Builders
are inherently a bad idea or not for a typical IDL customer. The IDL
Workbench is an ongoing, long term project and will continue to evolve.
>> I lately get the feeling
>> that the novice or non-power user of IDL is getting left more and more
>> in the dust, as IDL seems to be transitioning from an easy to learn
>> programming environment for some light-to-somewhat-heavy data
>> analysis, to a very complex programming language with much overhead in
>> which to be trained, IMHO.
>
> Your guess is as good as mine as to who ITTVIS thinks its
> customers are. I can't make heads or tails of it. But I'm
> pretty sure I'm not in that demographic any more. :-)
Maybe it's a left brain, right brain thing which determines how you see
it. ;-) (Anyone see the "spinning dancer" test to see if you're left
or right brained?)
Cheers,
Doug
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| Re: Where is GUI builder in IDL7? [message #58958 is a reply to message #58957] |
Wed, 27 February 2008 04:47  |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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jigga1206@gmail.com writes:
> I'm probably going to get slammed for bringing this up, but why did
> ITTVIS remove the GUI builder?
As I understand it, the move to the IDL Workbench allows
ITTVIS to get away from separate code bases for each
separate platform. This, they think, will make them more
efficient at adding new features to the language in the future
because cross-platform issues will be minimized. The GUI Builder
was the most egregious example of the problems presented by
separate code bases. It only existed on Windows. It used Windows-only
code. Etc. In short, it felt like an albatross around their necks.
They are glad to be shut of it.
(I am not even going to mention how many "rabbits" it won in the
annual IEPA Worst Code contest. [Similar to the "Emmy".] But, I
think it was something like 12 years in a row it walked away a
winner. The GUI Builder may have single handedly produced more
bad IDL code than all the former Astronomy graduate students
now in existence.)
> I lately get the feeling
> that the novice or non-power user of IDL is getting left more and more
> in the dust, as IDL seems to be transitioning from an easy to learn
> programming environment for some light-to-somewhat-heavy data
> analysis, to a very complex programming language with much overhead in
> which to be trained, IMHO.
Your guess is as good as mine as to who ITTVIS thinks its
customers are. I can't make heads or tails of it. But I'm
pretty sure I'm not in that demographic any more. :-)
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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