From octave-graphics-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Thu Feb 24 10:39:24 2000
Subject: gnuplot (Was: Re: New on the list : new plotting tool)
From: Teemu Ikonen <tpikonen at pcu dot helsinki dot fi>
To: Stephen Eglen <stephen at cogsci dot ed dot ac dot uk>
cc: Discussion list octave-graphics <octave-graphics at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 18:39:21 +0200 (EET)


This is starting to be a bit offtopic for octave-graphics, but anyway...

On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Stephen Eglen wrote:

> Can I just ask why you find gplot commands obscure?  I for one have
[...]
> Maybe yours and others frustration comes from the fact that you hadn't
> previously used gnuplot, and probably had also got used to using
> matlab for plottting things.

This is surely one reason and perhaps the biggest one. The gnuplot syntax
differs enough from the normal octave/matlab syntax to be a small pain. I
believe that plotting and simple data visualisation is important enough
part of any modern data-analysis or numerics tool to warrant a consistent
syntax with other commands. I also find the fact that plotting
documentation cannot be found from the same source as other octave
documentation to be a bit irritating. 

A general plotting syntax would solve these problems and allow for a wider
set of plotting programs to be used. Now gnuplot might be great for casual
plotting and visualisation, but there are times when one needs to do
something a bit more exotic and do it with publication quality. gnuplot
isn't always up to this, as this amusing snippet from gnuplot FAQ

> http://www-ihe.etec.uni-karlsruhe.de/mitarbeiter/vonhagen/gnuplot-faq.html

shows:

------clippety-clip------

3.5 How do I change symbol size, line thickness and the like? 

Again, this depends on the terminal type. For PostScript, you can edit the
generated PostScript file. An overview of what means what in the
PostScript files gnuplot generates can be found at picard.tamu.edu in
/pub/gnuplot/ as gs-ps.doc. A general introduction to PostScript can be
found at unix.hensa.ac.uk in /pub/misc/ukc.reports/comp.sci/reports/ as
11-92.ps.Z. 

------cloppety-clop------

I mean, we are living in the year 2000, right? :)

t.