> Hi all, > > Based on the past few days of posts, I'd like to open up a thorny issue: > > Do we have a plotting package that installs smoothly across all three major > platforms? > > I've been playing with python and matplotlib for a couple of months now, and > although the OO interface is a royal pain, at least I know I can send a > script to students/collaborators and it will just *work* for them. > > I've seen that PLplot is throwing up errors for some people, and now we have > Gnuplot grumbling as well. PGPLOT is still difficult to install and not > interactive-friendly.... > > If we want more PDL adopters, we should pick a plotting system and put all > our energies in making that work flawlessly for a couple of years, so that > interested people don't get discouraged. > > I also have a selfish reason - if we choose something other than PGPLOT, it > means a rewrite of the PDL Book, and I don't want to make the investment of > time if we suddenly decide that 'oops, $PLOTTING_SYSTEM isn't working > anymore/new shiny thing is the way to go'. > > I'd be happy to get any plotting package working for the SciPDL Mac binary > working, if we get a general consensus here. > > Matt
i'm going to be an instigator again and point out that pgplot, plplot, and gnuplot are all ~20 year old pieces of legacy software. at least gnuplot is actively maintained and evolving, but pgplot has hardly been touched in ~10 years. i've tried plplot a few times, but always ended up throwing up my hands after a short while. maintaining dependencies with packages like these will always be a headache and will hold back adoption and evolution of PDL. note that i haven't looking into prima at all, however. tying back into the previous discussion about notebook-type interfaces like what ipython has i'd like to point out the existence of http://d3js.org/. ipython notebooks are great, but using matplotlib graphics within a browser is rather limiting. integrating something like D3 opens up a lot more flexibility and capability. a browser-based PDL shell that used D3 for plotting could be pretty kick butt.... tim -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | T. E. Pickering, Ph.D. | Southern African Large Telescope | | SALT Astronomer | SAAO | | [email protected] (520) 305-9823 | Observatory Road | | [email protected] +27(0)214606284 | 7925 Observatory, South Africa | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ overflow error in /dev/null _______________________________________________ Perldl mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/perldl
