From octave-graphics-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Fri Mar 12 00:27:29 1999
Subject: Re: Comments on GUI and plotting library
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: octave-graphics at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 00:25:16 -0600 (CST)

On 11-Mar-1999, Matthew J Valenta <mvalenta at lycosmail dot com> wrote:

| Jonathan King wrote:
| 
| > Actually, if you want to use perltk to do guis, probably the
| > easiest way to go would be to create a perl program, let's call it
| > "interOctave".
| 
| > The charms are many:  First, we aren't really asking Octave to do anything
| > it can't already do right now, and people who don't need or like GUIs
| > won't pay any cost to those of us who do.  Second, we don't weld Octave to
| > a toolkit we might come to regret, or have to worry how to make a
| > matlab-like language handle graphics commands.  You're also leveraging
| 
| There is an even bigger advantage to using this approach.  By
| keeping the GUI code separate, we make it easier for someone else to
| take our GUI code and connect it to their program.
| 
| > Do you think it's worth a try?
| 
| Yes. What do other people thing?
| 
| I've been digging deeper into this idea and there are a number of
| possibly useful Perl modules that might save us work.  Most
| interesting though is PDL, which appears to include some 2-D and 3-D
| plotting abilities.  Check out http://www.aao.gov.au/local/www/kgb/perldl/

Sorry, but before you get too involved with these ideas, I have to say
that I'm not really interested in gluing perl and Octave together, or
adding things to Octave that require perl in order for them to work.

jwe