Re: [Plplot-devel] x20c.c

[Geoffrey F. <fu...@ga...>]

Jo=E3o Cardoso writes:
 > You want to write a tutorial; I just want to show that it can be=20
 > done. You want to write code that users can modify to theirs needs; =
I=20
 > just want to show them that it can be done.
 >=20
 > I profoundly disagree (as you said) on puting library dependencies o=
n=20
 > demos. It is not a question of being nice to have color images, but =
a=20
 > question of software development.
 >=20
 > What do others think?

I want to steer clear of any headstrong stance here myself, but I do
have some thoughts.

I also believe "demos" should be minimalist in their linkage
requirements.  But I also believe more extended examples could be
valuable.

I duno if anyone remembers, but long ages ago, I once mentioned that I
had hacked a raster capability into a development copy of plplot,
using a new plescape hook in xwin.c.  I never got around to committing
that.  The reason (well, among a host of others, including the whole
business of finding a hosting arrangement for PLplot) was that that
particular program was not only an example of an image display
capability, but it was also parallelized, using either Pthreads or
MPI.  (It was a parallel mandlebrot calculator, displaying to xwin).
So it was a /very/ complex example program.  I could not figure out
how to package an MPI example program into a suitable state for
distribution with PLplot.  Then the pressures of work diverted my
attention until it was effectively abandonded.

In general, I guess I favor having some mechanism to exhibit
"extensive examples" (potentially with substantial external linking
requirements), but I just don't think the "demos" is the right medium
for such expositions.  In my former case mentioned above, I had always
sort of wanted to set up something else, a new class of demos or
something.  In other words, not call it a demo, but call it a
contrib/example/XYZ, or something.

So, it seems to me that something similar is waranted in this case
too.  I agree with both of you.  There is a need for demos to be
simple, and a need for extensive examples to be exhibited.  My
suggestion is to somehow think of a packaging technique that puts the
extensive, external dependency laden examples, into a seperate
collection.  Probably each of those has to be separately configured,
based on the availability of various --enable-xyz options, drivers,
libraries, etc.=20

Because its so much work to set something like that up, that's why
I've never done it. =20

Gotta run.

--=20
Geoffrey Furnish         fu...@ga...