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Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work [message #78040 is a reply to message #78038]

Wed, 19 October 2011 15:43

David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001

Senior Member

Beaker writes:

> So my question is should we move to 8.1 or stay put, given the
> problems people are reporting? We don't do anything too fancy
> visualisation wise, just static 2d plots and maps, so we don't need to
> sit and the bleeding edge of fancy interactive graphics, if that is
> what causes the most problems.

Broken graphics routines is about half the problem.
The other half of the problem seems to be the Workbench.
If you use the command line to do non-graphical things,
IDL 8.1 might please you.

Certainly lists and hashes are useful. The object
syntax is fabulous. Lists and hashes have been
implemented in the IDL language and exist for
earlier versions of the language. (I use my LinkedList
object for many "listy" things, and Craig Markwardt
has a very useful hash object.) As far as I know,
there are no "memory" issues with either. They
understand how to clean themselves up properly.

I won't be able to use lists and hashes for another
couple of years or so, just because of the kind of
work I do, but if you are not keen to share your
software and/or everyone you know is using a recent
version of IDL, then I say go for it.

ITTVIS claims the graphics system is "95% working",
but I seem to run into that other 5% every time I
try to do something useful. I have made a line plot
(sans legend, of course) that works properly. For
my purposes, I would say the graphics system is
95% broken. I guess your mileage may vary, because
I run into people who say they love the graphics
routines. They probably aren't as anal about
how things look as I am. :-)

If you do decide to upgrade to IDL 8.1, be sure
to purchase the three year maintenance support
contract at the same time. I have a feeling you
are *really* going to need it. ;-)

Cheers,

David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.idlcoyote.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

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[Message index]

		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: David Fanning on Thu, 20 October 2011 11:11
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Thu, 20 October 2011 11:02
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: lecacheux.alain on Thu, 20 October 2011 01:43
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: David Fanning on Wed, 19 October 2011 15:43
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: Matt Francis on Wed, 19 October 2011 14:36
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: David Fanning on Wed, 19 October 2011 09:41
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: BLesht on Wed, 19 October 2011 08:40
		Re: IDL 8.1 is a Piece of Work By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Wed, 19 October 2011 09:19

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