Hi, Bill,

Here are a few comments in response to yours...

On Sep 17, 2010, at 11:21 , Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote:

> (1) functions do not return error codes; instead they hijack  
> stdout; I strongly urge returning zero on success and providing  
> information about errors using distinct non-zero error codes

I think this is a very valid criticism/complaint.  I think libraries  
should stay away from stdin/stdout/stderr, but even more so I think  
they should never call exit().  It could be useful to have an  
optional "warning" (and/or "error" and/or generic) callback so that  
the library client (i.e. the user's code) can be informed of certain  
conditions that are awkward to return in a single error code.  Some  
(all?) of this might already be there.

> (2) function names are cryptic.  Call it a failing of mine, but I  
> can barely tell them apart. It will soon be inconsequential to me,  
> because I will use my Pharo binding (which I will release when it  
> is worth having) and forget that the C functions exist, but I think  
> for new arrivals, a set of intention-revealing names would be far  
> superior to current names.  It reduces the value of the  
> documentation and the examples - what does plscol() do again?  Is  
> that color or column?  My 2 cents, and I doubt I'm alone.

Other may know more about this, but I think it is leftover from  
PLplot's PGPLOT heritage.  In any case, a collection of #defines  
should suffice to provide more human-friendly names.  It would be  
nice to standardize that or, even better IMHO, change the names and  
provide a collection of #defines for backwards compatibility.

> (4) it would be really nice to have something that takes an array  
> of function values, a starting x/time value and an increment and  
> draws a polyline.  I created something to create the x array in  
> memory, but there should be a way to skip that step.  Apologies/ 
> thanks if I missing the obvious.

Good idea.

> How does one put a title over a grid of plots to identify something  
> they have in common?

I'm not sure, but maybe manually setting the viewport to "full page"  
and then using one of the text writing functions?

> Is there a way to label a common x or y axis (for a column or row)?

How about just labeling the X axes of the bottom row plots and the Y  
axes of the left column of plots and leaving all the rest of the  
plots unlabeled?

Hope this helps and thanks for the fresh perspective!

Dave


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