| Modern IDL Comments [message #78001] |
Mon, 10 October 2011 13:29 |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Folks,
A lot of people ask me, "What in the world do you do on
that long flight to Australia!?" I normally give the same lame
answer, "I watch 3-4 really, really dumb movies while trying
to get some sleep."
But, this time I did something more productive. I read
Mike Galloy's very interesting and helpful book, Modern
IDL, cover to cover. What a pleasure!
Mike advises users already familiar with IDL to skip
the first six chapers if they like. I'm glad I didn't!
I almost learned more there than in the rest of the
chapters. Mike and I have had very different experiences
with IDL, have used it in different ways, and I found
it refreshing and interesting to read Mike's lucid
explainations of this different approach. I found myself
making notes almost every time I turned the page.
The book covers a lot of ground, and I found myself
often aware of problems and dangers that he must
by necessity skip or gloss over if he planned to write
a book that could be held in the hand (not to mention
carried in a flight bag). But, still, there was an
impressive amount of explanatory material that made
difficult subjects at least seem approachable. His
explanation of iTools, for example, made them almost
seem comprehensible, although he provided little
detail(correctly, in my opinion!) in this section.
And surely his three pages of text and an index entry for
the BLAS_AXPY function in IDL will be found in no
other IDL book published anywhere in the world! ;-)
This book is obviously not aimed at the noivce IDL
user, but for those of us who have been around the block
a few times, it will open the eyes to new possibilities
and a fresh way of thinking. Very well done, and a
valuable contribution of the growing IDL literature.
Thanks, Mike!
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thue. ("Perhaps thos speakest truth.")
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