| Re: Good programming practices and commercial development with IDL [message #73078 is a reply to message #73069] |
Fri, 22 October 2010 08:13   |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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David Fanning writes:
> I don't find this argument compelling, especially
> when it comes to high-end software. I think people making
> these kinds of decisions *weigh* price, but I don't think
> it is their most important criteria. Support, I would
> think, is MUCH more important to them.
Just to give a personal example. I don't care how
much IDL cost me. It does what I want it to do, and
I like it a lot. It is a great general purpose
scientific programming language.
What pushes me in the direction of Python is shelling
out generally small (but increasing!) amounts of money
year after year in support costs without getting anything
significantly meaningful to me in return.
I'm happy to see the direction IDL graphics are going
in, for example, but I'm not happy about spending my
time debugging them (with crippled debugging tools,
I might add!). I would be a great deal happier, however,
if some of the numerous bug reports I have submitted
over the years were addressed. I mean, really, how
hard is it to make NLEVELS actually produce
N levels in a contour plot! Or make TV smart enough to
know the difference between an 8-bit display and a 24-bit
display, or a 2D image and a 24-bit image!
Hell, hire an old guy and turn him lose on this old
stuff that people actually use every day. That would
make a lot of people happy. :-)
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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