Re: RSI's Priorities (was: GUI Builder...)

[mirko_vukovic(at)notes.mrc.sony.com]

In article <gurman-1411982301570001@goodgulf.nascom.nasa.gov>,
  gurman@gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) wrote:
> In article <364DDB7F.C8531805@io.harvard.edu>, Martin Schultz
> <mgs@io.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> > David Fanning wrote:
> >
> > > Brian Jackel (jackel@danlon.physics.uwo.ca) writes:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > > >
> > > > New bells and whistles at $1500 a pop or
> > > > Freeze development and deliver an ``IDL Classic'' at
> > > > $500 per head.
> > >
>   [Long comments omitted so my new client will let me post!]
>
>     Frankly, I just pulled down the objects manual and the 5.1 changes
> manual the other day for the first time, to try to see if it was a better
> way to write MPEG movies than I was using (should I cross post to that
> thread?). Applying Occam's razor (the one that slits your throat if you
> try doing things elegantly when you already have three job titles and a
> family to boot), I will probably decide to make do with what I know how to
> do instead.... but I'm intrigued. Maybe next time.
>
Unfortunately, it takes much more than a weekend to appreciate the usefullness
of OOP.  I was fortunate enough to have enough liberty at my previous and
current place of work, to have had the time to learn the rudiments of what
(I think) is the proper way of OOPing.

On a related thread, while the programming features of IDL are growing,
I would hope that the interactive features would do the same.  Insight may
be one attempt, but still very limited.

The ideal, as I see it, would be a GUI type tool, where you would click and
drag data to appropriate functions (or use some of them to create the data). 
If input were necessary, a dialog window would pop up.	The interface would
be able to compile user functions and procedures, and  create rudimentary,
non-intelligent input/output dialogs for them as well.

Since data analysis is typically a sequence of actions,
each action may be represented by connecting lines between data objects (I am
talking here arrays and vectors as objects, nothing fancy), and the functions
that operate
on them.  A time sequence of these connections would then be transformed
into an IDL program for the user to tweak.

It seems to me that all of this should be implemented in IDL or Java. (I have
never programmed in Java).  That should make it platform independent.

Now how 'bout that?!  Off I go to implement this!!!

Yeah right :-)

cheers,

Mirko

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