On 2011-10-27 07:51-0400 Hezekiah M. Carty wrote: > On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Alan W. Irwin > <ir...@beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote: >> >> To the PLplot developers here: I think we should implement standard >> example x00 in C similar to the way Steve described with the emphasis >> on keeping it an extraordinarily simple plot as described in >> http://plplot.sourceforge.net/docbook-manual/plplot-html-5.9.9/simple.html. >> We should then propagate example 0 to all our languages. >> >> If the developers here agree with this plan, then I volunteer to take >> responsibility for implementing the C example part of this as well as >> the trivial build-system and script changes necessary to include this >> example. I should be able to help with some of the propagation efforts >> as well. >> > > This seems like it will only be of benefit to compiled languages which > have reasonably robust CMake support. Perl and Python are not likely > to benefit as they do not need a build system to use PLplot once > PLplot is installed. OCaml does not have any support from CMake, > requiring an overly complex CMake build example in this case. > > How much propagation should be done for these and similar languages?
By now you have had an opportunity to read my explanation to Andrew, and I hope that has already answered your question. But if that explanation was not clear, there are two important but distinct issues to address in my opinion. (i) Create a really simple "hello world" example following the prescription in http://plplot.sourceforge.net/docbook-manual/plplot-html-5.9.9/simple.html to help to give a start to users who are completely unfamiliar with PLplot. I have now created such an example for C (x00c.c). Andrew has already reviewed that example from the point of view that we want it to be really simple and implemented with high-quality, easy-to-understand code, but I invite others to review it as well. When those reviews are done, we should propagate this example to _all_ languages since the point is users could use a simple and understandable PLplot example in all languages. (ii) Create a CMake-based "tutorial" build system to demonstrate how to build applications against an installed version of PLplot. For this, we only need to deal with compiled languages (as you correctly state). Also, we should keep it simple so I think we should just use one compiled language (probably C) and just one example (probably x00c.c). A small CMakeLists.txt file (roughly ~5 lines of CMake logic) with a configured location for the PLplot installed export files, and a configured location for the example should achieve this goal. The comments in that file should invite users to adapt this tutorial build system to other compiled languages following the methods in examples/<language>/CMakeLists.txt. I invite someone else to implement this tutorial build system because I will be busy with other projects for some time to come. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The demand for IT networking professionals continues to grow, and the demand for specialized networking skills is growing even more rapidly. Take a complimentary Learning@Cisco Self-Assessment and learn about Cisco certifications, training, and career opportunities. http://p.sf.net/sfu/cisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
