| Re: Good programming practices and commercial development with IDL [message #73087 is a reply to message #73085] |
Fri, 22 October 2010 07:20   |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
|
Senior Member |
|
|
medd writes:
> Do you think it is crazy to go with IDL?
Not entirely, no. :-)
> Do you know of other companies which have done this?
Yes. Some successfully. Some not so much.
If I were going to build a commercial application,
especially in medical imaging, I don't think the
cost of a run-time license bundled with the software
would hold me back. Thrown into the mix with the
cost of the imaging machine, it's chump change.
If I were building a commercial application, I would
want it to *look* like a commercial application. So,
if I were doing this, I'd make sure the damn thing ran
on Windows computers. You put a Motif application on
a Macintosh and you are asking for ridicule.
There are minor annoyances. For example, if you
put a file name into a Dialog_Pickfile, it comes
up showing only half the file name. It's all there,
just not visible to the user. That's not exactly
commercial-software friendly, but it doesn't seem
to bother anyone. At least I haven't been able to
convince anyone to fix it for the past couple of
years.
I think time-to-market with IDL software would
be a lot faster than with other software. But
sometimes the race doesn't go to the swift.
So, I think it's a mixed bag. I think IDL makes
perfect sense when you are building advanced
research tools, to be used by researchers who
can maybe tolerate more nuance in the way tools
work and look. In the hands of a medical
technician... Hard to say. It could well depend
more on the skill of the carpenter than the
shape of the tool.
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.")
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
