Re: Should gnuplot become a programming environment?

[<pl...@pi...>]

On 10/30/14 07:29, sfeam wrote:
> Yes, loops are new.
>
> The only thing new about conditionals is that the
>
> introduction of bracketed clauses means that you
>
> no longer have to stuff the entire content on a
>
> single input line.
>
> IHMO both of these are significant improvements
>
> in usability.
>

They are indeed significant improvements, many thanks for adding these 
features.

Being able to structure blocks of code properly and iterate are some of 
the most useful things since you implemented my suggestion of being able 
to assign a variable, which you remarkably did in under 24h.  Amazing 
responsiveness in gnuplot devel.

There is some sense in idea of taking a step back to look at overall 
design of these kind of scripting language features. Making it top down 
instead of growing piecemeal.

I find the loop commands useful but the rather unusual and specific 
syntax may be inconvenient at some point in the future. Also the odd 
need to use commas in place of the usual semicolon in defining functions 
seems inconsistent and could be limiting as things move forwards.

That said, being able to add functions opens up huge possibilities that 
avoids needing to pre-process data for trivial things like diff and 
integration and other simple needs. Bulk data processing is still better 
done outside of the plotting utility in tested code suites in compiled 
code but this remains an incredibly useful feature.

I don't think there is a need to view this as 'taking on" other 
languages or "loosing" to them. If I had a scripting task to do I would 
use an existing tool not a plotting program, but if I need manipulate or 
tweak  some data I'm plotting, having that ability built-in is has a lot 
of merit. Documentation and archiving being a key argument: all is in 
one file.

A number of times, I've found the lack of indexed arrays rather 
frustrating and I keep trying to use x+=1 type syntax before remembering 
it is not defined.

my2c, Peter.