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Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? [message #13414 is a reply to message #13247]

Wed, 04 November 1998 00:00

Randall Smith
Messages: 4
Registered: November 1998

Junior Member

davidf@dfanning.com (David Fanning) writes:

>
> Gwyn Fireman (fireman@magictrick.gsfc.nasa.gov) writes:
>
>> Now that IDL 5.2 has been offically announced, I'm being asked if we
>> should upgrade. I have what RSI sent, and the press release - where
>> can I get more information?
>
> I will say this about IDL 5.2 (whether I am suppose to
> or not): if you work for NASA and you don't get this
> upgrade you must be working in the backwaters and are
> about to lose your funding. If this upgrade is not named
> the "NASA upgrade" internally, then it ought to be. I can't
> imagine a group of people better suited to using its new
> functionality. Consider just file formats for a moment: TIFF++,
> GeoTIFF, PNG, HDF+, HDF-EOS. That list, along with unsigned
> integers, has to have NASA types drooling. :-)
>

Well, speaking as an ex-NASA postdoc, yes, having those file formats
is terrific but RSI had better watch the cost, especially for the
small-time Unix users. I had some serious problems convincing my boss
to go for the upgrade to v5, and many new Unix workstations are now
IDL-free, at least where I was. When the cost of a new IDL license is
50% of the workstation cost, leaving it off starts sounding better and
better.

This doesn't really affect places where there is a "systems group"
that handles computer purchases and that ensures that all is well.
But at least in the research groups, more and more computers are
bought simply on research grants that have finite budgets. And these
research groups eventually propose the multi-million dollar projects
that buy IDL as a matter of course. Unless, of course, the underlying
research group couldn't afford IDL before, and so nobody bothers to
buy it now. It's a slow-brewing problem, though--one that won't show
it's head until it's too late to do anything.

Randall Smith
rsmith@cfa.harvard.edu

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[Message index]

		IDL 5.2 reviews? By: fireman on Thu, 29 October 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: davidf on Tue, 03 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: Allan Beihl on Tue, 03 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: davidf on Tue, 03 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: David Foster on Tue, 03 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: davidf7203 on Fri, 06 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: mgs on Fri, 06 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: davidf7203 on Fri, 06 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: philip aldis on Fri, 06 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: davidf7203 on Fri, 06 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: rmlongfield on Thu, 05 November 1998 00:00
		Re: IDL 5.2 reviews? By: Randall Smith on Wed, 04 November 1998 00:00

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