Hello, I'm new in this list. I've been reading the recent threads about how to get more people to use PDL, including the ones about making PDL more modular so people get fewer compile errors.
I have an idea. It might be a stupid idea, but here it goes: What if you made a single, big, stand-alone PDL package with everything you need to use PDL. Everything compiled, and statically linked if necessary. Big file, yes, but the idea is to put it on a CD, give it out to your colleagues, and have them install it with minimal hassle. The goal here is to make it easier for MATLAB and IDL users try PDL. Who cares about the size? Modern hard disks are huge, and a CD holds 700MB. The 'Padre' project already offers a stand-alone package for Windows, Linux (experimental) and Mac (experimental) which includes Perl 5.10 and Padre. This would be a great place to start. "Just" add PDL on top of that, and now you can give your colleagues a "PDL Standalone" CD that even includes Perl AND AN IDE. MATLAB and IDL users are used to having an IDE. Padre is already a fine IDE for PDL, even without any integration plugins. You type your PDL code, it is nicely syntax-highlighted, and you click 'run'. Maybe not as fancy as the MATLAB IDE, but it's a nice IDE and it works. I think that a single package containing Perl + Padre + PDL would be a very interesting alternative to expensive MATLAB and IDL. My wife's (engineering) university switched from MATLAB to Scilab because the MATLAB fees where sucking up the whole budget. I seriously think that "PDL + Padre standalone" would be a strong competitor. To be clear, I am not suggesting that you stop releasing the regular source / CPAN distributions, or that you make the big huge mega package every time there is a release. I think that once a year would be about right. How much can PDL possibly change in one year? I'm sure that the work of adding PDL to the stand-alone Padre is very non-trivial, but perhaps the Padre guys can help. They might be interested because this would promote Padre too. I don't suppose that they will want to include PDL in every Padre distribution, but maybe they can help with a "Padre + PDL" distribution that can be put on the PDL website and be given out in CDs. Anyway, what do you think? Does this idea have any merit or does it just show my utter ignorance of compiling and packaging? Cheers, Daniel. _______________________________________________ Perldl mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/perldl
