Re: desired features for gp backend?

[John W. Eaton]

On 18-Jun-2009, Daniel J Sebald wrote:

| John W. Eaton wrote:
| 
| > The other alternative would have been to completely hide gnuplot
| > behind some plotting functions without introducing any new syntax.
| 
| Yes, that would have worked.  Extra lead time though.

I don't know.  Significant effort was required to partially implement
gnuplot's plot, splot, and set syntax in Octave's parser.  Going with
a straight function call style would probably have been easier and
faster to implement.  As I recall, I only went with the gnuplot-like
syntax at the urging of a colleague.  In hindsight, I wish I hadn't
caved in to the peer pressure.

| > I've always assumed that you wanted to pass literal gnuplot syntax as
| > the postplot property.  To me, that ties you to gnuplot.
| 
| Yes, if that is the engine one is using.  What I meant by "hidden"
| is that no scripts in the Octave distribution uses the option,
| because then yes one is introducing dependence on the graphing
| engine.  One shouldn't introduce such dependence in the OctaveForge
| packages either.  The only place would be bundled with the actual
| plotting engine scripts itself.  (Or the user's own scripts.)

It's the "or the user's own scripts" part that I'm concerned about.
Given the option, I expect that users will pepper their scripts with
things that tie themselves to a particular plotting engine, then
complain when that later breaks.  I don't see it as necessary, so I'd
rather avoid it.

jwe