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[Fhsst-authors] Hsalgebra Figures . . . and Stuff
From: |
Peter Hutnick |
Subject: |
[Fhsst-authors] Hsalgebra Figures . . . and Stuff |
Date: |
Tue, 06 Apr 2004 08:32:54 -0600 |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031205 Thunderbird/0.4 |
I checked some changes in this morning. I intended to do it yesterday,
but savannah ate my pubkey!
Before I go any further I'd like some feedback on the stuff I checked in.
I created figure 1.12 (in hsalgebra.tex).
I made every effort not to goof the TeX file up. Used GNU nano (with
-w) to edit. Still builds fine. Whew!
I also found an error in that example; the signs for all of the values
of f(x) in the table were wrong. It's fixed in the attached version.
I have a few questions/issues on the whole figures situation. First, I
am a bit confused about the naming convention. I have been using wf for
What is a Function . . . the name of the chapter. I have been numbering
them ex[figure number]. This seems to deviate somewhat from the
existing figures, but I'm not sure what the right way is.
** Warning: Here comes some advice that makes up for its lack of quality
with sheer quantity and audaciousness. **
I think that the naming scheme for these figures has some shortcomings
(other than merely being opaque to me ).
First, a directory filled with files that are /all/ prefixed by the same
string (hsa) indicates to me that there should be another subdir. Like:
fhhst
|-> maths
|-> eps
|-> hsa
|-> functions.hypb.1.gnuplot
("eps" should be figs IMO, since other dir names indicate content, not
format . . .)
Using a more plain description will help avoid renumbering issues. I
presume this is why all the qi qf stuff was used in the first place.
In the same vein, the .gnuplot files are full of careful formatting
commands, which makes the plots look very nice. OTOH, it makes them
fragile. Ideally, changing a coefficient would cause the plot to
automatically re-scale, shift labels around, etc. GNUPlot's ability to
do this seems quite limited. In the absence of near AI abilities in
GNUPlot to make everything pretty, I propose that prettyfication be left
to the last.
Specifically I am talking about using coords with x and ylabel, and
manually setting the x and yticks. I understand that this is to avoid
the crowded looking zeros at the origin. Like I said, best left to last.
Incidentally, the PostScrpt terminal type has an eps option. I think
this will save a step. And why aren't the EPS files generated by the
make system?
I would be willing to make any of these changes that are agreeable to
the group. (Assuming I can track down that key . . .)
I am acutely aware that I am the new kid, and I didn't show up just to
start telling the old hands what's what. OTOH (how many hands is that
so far?), I can't go ahead with practices that I think are going to
cause problems down the road in good conscience without saying something.
** End unsolicited advice **
I also have some questions about GNUPlot. I can do my own research on
this stuff, but if someone here is an expert it would save me a bunch of
groveling through docs and begging on mailing lists that I don't happen
to already be subscribed to
The xlabel and ylabel settings work precisely opposite of the way I'd
expect. Namely, they put the xlabel at the end of the /negative/ /y/
axis, as opposed to the positive x axis. What give with that?
Am I correct in my belief that the aspect ratio of these charts is fixed
at 7:5? Having to fiddle around with a proportion to get a "square"
plot for things like circles seems sub-optimal.
Speaking of circles, my circle (hsa-wf-ex1.eps) is missing the parts
that should be close to the x axis. Is there a known work-around for
this sort of thing?
Wow, that was a long email. I hope I haven't ruffled any feathers or
been otherwise annoying. By all means, flame me if I have
Thanks for letting me monkey around with your project.
-Peter
- [Fhsst-authors] Hsalgebra Figures . . . and Stuff,
Peter Hutnick <=