On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 10:58:52PM -0700, Alan Irwin wrote: > On 2011-10-26 11:03-0700 Alan W. Irwin wrote: > > > On 2011-10-26 11:53+0100 Steve Schwartz wrote: > > > >> While I'm writing, if someone does try to put together a tutorial > >> system/prescription, and even if they don't, a very simple real working > >> example would be a good addition. The various examples shiped with > >> plplot are a really excellent and fairly exhaustive demonstration of the > >> various features and capabilities of plplot, and are the first place for > >> an already-initiated user to go. But a real newbie, just trying to plot > >> a simple graph, will get lost. The plplot documentation has an initial > >> chapter about "Simple use of plplot" which works through the basic > >> interface and simplest api functions, but doesn't actually show a > >> working bit of code. > >> > >> I'd suggest writing x00 that: > >> > >> 1. calculates y=x^2 for x =0,1,2,3,4,5 > >> 2. initiates plplot with plinit > >> 3. sets up the plot with plenv > >> 4. plots this as a (default) line with plline > >> 5. plots this as a set of points with plpoin > >> 6. ends > >> > >> (i.e., follows the Simple Use chapter). This is plplot's answer to > >> "Hello World", and a tutorial build should start here to focus on the > >> make, compile, link, run, drivers, etc. machinery. Once this is working > >> for a user, the rest is easy. And, of course, such a user could use the > >> same machinery with any of the other xnn example source code and hack > >> them to do more sophisicated things. > > > > Thanks, Steve, for this suggestion which I really like. > > > > To the PLplot developers here: I think we should implement standard > > example x00 in C similar to the way Steve described with the emphasis > > on keeping it an extraordinarily simple plot as described in > > http://plplot.sourceforge.net/docbook-manual/plplot-html-5.9.9/simple.html. > > We should then propagate example 0 to all our languages. > > > > If the developers here agree with this plan, then I volunteer to take > > responsibility for implementing the C example part of this as well as > > the trivial build-system and script changes necessary to include this > > example. I should be able to help with some of the propagation efforts > > as well. > > As promised, I have now (revision 12001) implemented x00c.c and made > the necessary changes to incorporate this example into our build and > test systems. > > I deliberately kept it extremely simple for the reasons that were > discussed earlier in this thread. For example, the default colour > scheme is used, and I only demonstrated a line plot with no symbols. > > Please try (with -DBUILD_TEST=ON) > > make x00c > examples/c/x00c -dev whatever > > to review what this example looks like. Of course, also please review > examples/c/x00c.c for overall understandability since this example is > likely to be used in a PLplot tutorial. > > Within the overall constraint that we want to keep this example as > simple as possible, let me know if you have any suggestions to > change the plotted result or the understandability of the code. > > I hope this review period can be fairly short (a day or so) since any > individual > review should only take a few minutes for such simple code and results. > > Once the review period is completed, this example should be propagated > to other languages.
Alan, The example looks fine in that it is pretty much as simple as you can make it. I think more important (and this is Steve's point) is to have a really simple example of a CMakeList.txt file to build the project to help developers write their own. Having two supported build systems, and all the complication of a large number of examples etc makes it quite hard to understand what is going on for the novice. Andrew ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The demand for IT networking professionals continues to grow, and the demand for specialized networking skills is growing even more rapidly. Take a complimentary Learning@Cisco Self-Assessment and learn about Cisco certifications, training, and career opportunities. http://p.sf.net/sfu/cisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
