comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive: archive

Home » Public Forums » archive » Introducing FL

Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend

Re: Introducing FL [message #48242 is a reply to message #48144]

Tue, 04 April 2006 16:28

George N. White III is currently offline

George N. White III
Messages: 56
Registered: September 2000

Member

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006, Paul Van Delst wrote:

> Y.T. wrote:
> [...]
>> At my place of employ I can get Matlab for free (i.e. site-license) but
>> I'd be horribly worthless with Matlab because I'd be spending my time
>> re-re-relearning when and where to place a comma or a semicolon and
>> what was the syntax for a linear fit again? So I use GDL, because that
>> allows me to get something *done*. As in *now*.
>
> That, of course, is very important but....
>>
>> (I work for a federally funded research facility and you, the
>> tax-payer, are expending my salary. Do you really think you're getting
>> your money's worth out of the deal if I spend my time learning this
>> years fad-language?)
>
> Yes, actually (being a taxpayer who also happens to work at a federally
> funded research facility). Learning new programming languages is not unlike
> learning new spoken languages (except easier IMO). It broadens one's horizon
> to make different solution methodologies available. In some cases they may
> help your work, others not. I would be a foolish taxpayer if I expected you
> to not expend time learning new stuff that may make your job easier and more
> efficient. And, of course, there's the "personal improvement" aspect -- ya
> gotta be happy at what you do. :o)
>
> paulv
>
> p.s. I would love to get a matlab site license - even though I barely know
> enough matlab for the "hello world" chestnut. Until then, learning Ruby and
> Python while I wait for Fortran2003 compilers will have to do. :o)

I also work at a government funded research facility where we have had
Matlab longer than we have had IDL (since the days when Cleve Moler worked
for Ardent). I have coded a number of core algorithms we use in both
Matlab and IDL as a sort of crib sheet for post-docs (many have worked
with Matlab, few with IDL). For my work, Matlab suffers in comparison to
IDL because (like S+) it encourages you to use doubles, but (unlike S+) it
lacks missing value support which is important for the things I do where
doubles are appropriate. If I needed sparse arrays I wouldn't mind the
doubles so much, but these days I'm more interested in finding tools that
support the OpenEXR 16-bit floating pt. format.

All these languages handle 75-80% of the problems I have without
straining. Where they differ is in the interests of the user community
and in the ability to handle the other 20-25% of the problems without
asking for money to upgrade my hardware.

--
George N. White III <aa056@chebucto.ns.ca>

Report message to a moderator

[Message index]

		Introducing FL By: FL on Sat, 01 April 2006 06:44
		Re: Introducing FL By: FL on Thu, 06 April 2006 09:50
		Re: Introducing FL By: Maurizio Tomasi on Thu, 06 April 2006 00:14
		Re: Introducing FL By: George N. White III on Tue, 04 April 2006 16:28
		Re: Introducing FL By: JD Smith on Tue, 04 April 2006 12:38
		Re: Introducing FL By: Craig Markwardt on Tue, 04 April 2006 08:45
		Re: Introducing FL By: Craig Markwardt on Tue, 04 April 2006 08:41
		Re: Introducing FL By: FL on Tue, 04 April 2006 08:21
		Re: Introducing FL By: mmiller3 on Tue, 04 April 2006 08:16
		Re: Introducing FL By: mmiller3 on Tue, 04 April 2006 08:08
		Re: Introducing FL By: mmiller3 on Tue, 04 April 2006 08:07
		Re: Introducing FL By: Ken Mankoff on Tue, 04 April 2006 07:33
		Re: Introducing FL By: Michael Wallace on Tue, 04 April 2006 06:53
		Re: Introducing FL By: FL on Tue, 04 April 2006 06:22
		Re: Introducing FL By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Tue, 04 April 2006 05:23
		Re: Introducing FL By: Ben Panter on Tue, 04 April 2006 03:13
		Re: Introducing FL By: Y.T. on Mon, 03 April 2006 21:28
		Re: Introducing FL By: Richard French on Mon, 03 April 2006 20:51
		Re: Introducing FL By: Craig Markwardt on Mon, 03 April 2006 19:17
		Re: Introducing FL By: b_gom on Mon, 03 April 2006 14:59
		Re: Introducing FL By: JD Smith on Mon, 03 April 2006 13:29
		Re: Introducing FL By: Foldy Lajos on Mon, 03 April 2006 11:33
		Re: Introducing FL By: news.qwest.net on Mon, 03 April 2006 09:19
		Re: Introducing FL By: FL on Sun, 02 April 2006 12:33
		Re: Introducing FL By: biophys on Sun, 02 April 2006 12:31
		Re: Introducing FL By: biophys on Sun, 02 April 2006 12:15
		Re: Introducing FL By: Craig Markwardt on Sun, 02 April 2006 11:09

Previous Topic:	Re: iTools/interactive Analysis >
Next Topic:	Anything in IDL like R's Copy to Clipboard As a Metafile?

-=] Back to Top [=-

[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [

] [

]

Current Time: Wed Oct 08 17:41:03 PDT 2025

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.00503 seconds