Re: [Plplot-devel] Configuration defaults

[Maurice L. <mj...@ga...>]

Jo=E3o Cardoso writes:
 > On Friday 28 February 2003 19:51, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
 > | On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Maurice LeBrun wrote:
 > | > These are fine with me personally, yes even with_double.  Althou=
gh
 > | > in that case you may trip up some people who are used to the old=

 > | > behavior.
 > |
 > | OK.  I left with-double=3Dno.
 >=20
 > I don't think that Maurice really meant to keep with-double=3Dno. Af=
ter=20
 > all, when we change the API the consequences are much worse, and tha=
t=20
 > don't inhibits us from doing it.
 > And we have the configure summary, that clearly states the float/dou=
ble=20
 > status.
 > Also, with the new nn/csa/qhull libraries, the better is to use doub=
le=20
 > by default.
 > So, I vote for with-double=3Dyes.

I didn't actually say I objected; what I wrote was:

> These are fine with me personally, yes even with_double.  Although in=
 that
> case you may trip up some people who are used to the old behavior.

So the latter is just a warning that this is yet another change that ma=
y cause
some transition problems for some people.  Change is always ok if there=
 is a
large enough benefit.. is that the case here?  It's easy enough to spec=
ify
--with-double[=3Dyes].  Are there other benefits to be gained, other th=
an
working with the nn/csa/qhull libraries?

Either way it won't affect me, as I always install both float & double
versions.

 > Maurice, some time ago you argued that we should not drop float supp=
ort.=20
 > Could you please "argue" again? Sourceforge mailing lists don't have=
 a=20
 > search facility, what makes difficult to find something we know is=20=

 > there.

If your code uses large floating point arrays and you're developing on =
a
personal machine the 50% memory reduction gained (and some cpu time gai=
ned) by
using (float *) rather than (double *) can be very significant.

--=20
Maurice LeBrun    mj...@ga...
Research Organization for Information Science and Technology of Japan (=
RIST)