| Re: modifying itools (ivolume) [message #37078] |
Mon, 24 November 2003 13:38  |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Rick,
what a great piece of humor to end the work day. I was basically ROFLOL. But
in the end it does not matter how crappy your fonts are and how poorly the
title is centered. All people care for is how cool the science is! Besides
that, the programmers at Adobe want to live, too.
Regarding the recruitment of "hooked" students, I would handle that
completely different: I would give out FREE student versions, because there
is no money in students anyway (they can't even buy their own music). But as
you noticed, getting the students hooked is THE way to go. If it is not
FREE, students obtain software in not so ligitimate ways. In this scenario
software companies with the best copy protection (dongle/flexlm) loose out.
Cheers,
Haje
"Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:bptppu$dom$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>
> "David Fanning" wrote in message...
>
> O.K. David, I will finally bite.
>
>> I don't know, as I've said before in this newsgroup,
>> who these tools are written for.
>
> Do you remember when you started using IDL? I don't know how it was sold
to
> you, but I remember being sold by the visualization capabilities. "You
can
> plot your data with one simple command!" And 15 other calls to add a
legend
> and colorbar and text that you then had to twiddle with for 20 minutes to
> get just right... But it still was an impressive tool and compared to the
> competition it was (IMO) superior.
>
> Obviously you aren't hanging around the University of Colorado campus too
> much these days. At the UW, a war is being waged by software companies
for
> the hearts and minds of students. Insightful, Mathworks, RSI, Wolfram,
> Microsoft, SAS, ESRI... The battle to grow the user base is here. And
> today, when I try to sell a new student on IDL, it isn't so simple:
>
> Rick> O.K., you read in some data, you have your PLOT there,
> now add a few XYOUTS... there! Now hit F5.
> Student> Cool! But that title needs to be moved a bit,
> and the legend... I'll just use my mouse...
> Student> What is wrong, the title isn't moving.
> Rick> Go back to your program. Change this to 0.63 and
> that to 0.925. Compile. Run.
> Student> Well that is a bit better... But what about that...
> And why can't I use the mouse?
> Haje> Why does the text look like crap?
> Student> And why are the colors all funny?
> Student> Why is it all screwed up when I print it?
> Student> Forget this. I am going to use <insert easier
> to use application name here>
>
> There are a number of applications that do basic scientific viz
> easier/quicker than IDL. IDL is still a very powerful visualization
package
> but most of it is out of reach for the new/casual IDL user. The same user
> RSI is trying to recruit to it's army of loyalists.
>
> Enter iTools.
>
> So while I can't answer your question from RSI's perspective, I see the
> iTools specifically targeted at the new or casual IDL user. Give them a
> reason to keep using IDL and investing time in learning the language. As
> that investment grows, so does RSI's revenue.
>
> I also think it is too early to debate whether or not the iTools will
> ultimately deliver on this goal. I am cautiously optimistic, but that is
> just my personality :)
>
> So bash iTools if you must, but make sure you view them from a few
different
> angles before you let loose.
>
>
> -Rick
>
>
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