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Re: New Graphics Tolerant of Clumsy Fingers! [message #72922] Mon, 18 October 2010 09:35
David Fanning is currently offline  David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
Senior Member
mankoff writes:

> Isn't this a required side effect of _EXTRA=e?

It is a side effect of _EXTRA to be sure. But it
is also the reason _STRICT_EXTRA was invented.
Normally, by the time you get to the end of the
chain (do you go UP, or DOWN!?) you shouldn't have
any keywords left to process. If you do, something
is wrong.

My guess is that the "something wrong" message
is *extremely* long and potentially embarrassing,
since it has to come from deep in the bowels of
the object graphics system. But, I'm not sure
ignoring it is the best possible solution to the
problem.

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.")
Re: New Graphics Tolerant of Clumsy Fingers! [message #72923 is a reply to message #72922] Mon, 18 October 2010 09:28 Go to previous message
mankoff is currently offline  mankoff
Messages: 131
Registered: March 2004
Senior Member
On Oct 18, 8:14 am, Michael Galloy <mgal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/18/10 7:49 am, David Fanning wrote:
>
>
>
>> Folks,
>
>> In fooling around with some new graphics plots this
>> morning I discovered an amazing new feature. The
>> graphics routines are *amazingly* tolerant of
>> clumsy spelling!
>
>> Look at this:
>
>>     IDL>  p = Plot(Findgen(11), /ASPICT_RATIO, AXSI_SYTLE=1, $
>>               /XXXLOG, TITIE='Smart Plot!')
>
>> Not a peep out of it! This is wonderful. No one I know
>> can type anyway. Now we don't have to worry about it!
>
>> Cheers,
>
>> David
>
>> P.S. I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend my
>> time debugging programs than almost anything else.
>> These objects are a god-send! :-)
>
> This is the same issue that the iTools have with keywords. While this
> was one of many serious issues with the iTools' command line interface,
> it definitely sticks out more with new graphics. Silently ignoring
> errors is an extremely bad response!
>
> Mike
> --www.michaelgalloy.com
> Research Mathematician
> Tech-X Corporation

Isn't this a required side effect of _EXTRA=e?

-k.
Re: New Graphics Tolerant of Clumsy Fingers! [message #72929 is a reply to message #72923] Mon, 18 October 2010 08:14 Go to previous message
Michael Galloy is currently offline  Michael Galloy
Messages: 1114
Registered: April 2006
Senior Member
On 10/18/10 7:49 am, David Fanning wrote:
> Folks,
>
> In fooling around with some new graphics plots this
> morning I discovered an amazing new feature. The
> graphics routines are *amazingly* tolerant of
> clumsy spelling!
>
> Look at this:
>
> IDL> p = Plot(Findgen(11), /ASPICT_RATIO, AXSI_SYTLE=1, $
> /XXXLOG, TITIE='Smart Plot!')
>
> Not a peep out of it! This is wonderful. No one I know
> can type anyway. Now we don't have to worry about it!
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> P.S. I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend my
> time debugging programs than almost anything else.
> These objects are a god-send! :-)

This is the same issue that the iTools have with keywords. While this
was one of many serious issues with the iTools' command line interface,
it definitely sticks out more with new graphics. Silently ignoring
errors is an extremely bad response!

Mike
--
www.michaelgalloy.com
Research Mathematician
Tech-X Corporation
Re: New Graphics Tolerant of Clumsy Fingers! [message #72931 is a reply to message #72929] Mon, 18 October 2010 08:08 Go to previous message
David Fanning is currently offline  David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
Senior Member
Carsten Lechte writes:

> So, did it do what you wanted, or did it do nothing at all...

Neither. :-)

I suppose it did what I told it to do. It just ignores
what it doesn't understand, sort of like the dog here
at my feet.

My point was, I was trying to get it to do a particular
thing, and it wouldn't do it. It took me quite a few
minutes to realize the reason it wasn't working was
that I had accidentally transposed some letters in
a keyword. I know from experience that mis-spelled
commands that don't throw errors are some of the
HARDEST errors to track down in programs. These objects
are not going to make this kind of error any easier
to find.

Happy sleuthing!

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.")
Re: New Graphics Tolerant of Clumsy Fingers! [message #72932 is a reply to message #72931] Mon, 18 October 2010 07:54 Go to previous message
Carsten Lechte is currently offline  Carsten Lechte
Messages: 124
Registered: August 2006
Senior Member
David Fanning wrote:

> Not a peep out of it! This is wonderful.

So, did it do what you wanted, or did it do nothing at all...


chl
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