From octave-graphics-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Fri Feb 25 11:25:31 2000
Subject: Re: gnuplot (Was: Re: New on the list : new plotting tool) 
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: Tim Piessens <Tim dot Piessens at esat dot kuleuven dot ac dot be>
Cc: Discussion list octave-graphics <octave-graphics at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 11:26:04 -0600 (CST)

On 25-Feb-2000, Tim Piessens <Tim dot Piessens at esat dot kuleuven dot ac dot be> wrote:

| It is indeed difficult and then octave will be dependent of other
| libraries as gtk or others. But, referring to your previous mail, I don't
| think it is bad design to make your software dependent of a freely
| distributed library if you in the other case let the functionality of
| your software be dependent of one others free software.

My point was that it is bad design to have the user interface closely
tied to the functionality of the program.  If a plotting package
*requires* a particular GUI to operate at all, I would consider it to
be a problem.  If there is some separation between the funtionality of
the plotting routines and the user interface, things are better.
FWIW, gnuplot also fails in this regard, since there is no good way to
get around the command language and just use the functionality of the
plotter.  But at least there is no requirement of some particular
pointy-clicky GUI on top of that too!

jwe