Re: VIP

[davidf(at)dfanning.com (David Fanning)]

David Brennan (9147261b@clinmed.gla.ac.uk) writes:

> I got an e-mail recently from the RSI people that there is some new
> software called VIP Visual IDL Programming. I realise this hasn't yet
> been released (well not here in the UK anyway!), but does anyone have
> anything to say about it, good or bad. Has anyone had a look at any beta
> versions? Or am I the only one to know about it, because RSI knows I am
> not very good at programming and thus thought I would get excited about
> drag and drop programming!

Uh, bad news, Dave. You and I are the only ones
who got the notice. :-(

I had a quick look at it the other day, just
prior to its release. It actually crashed the
first time I touched it. :-(

Well, it was a pretty tough program: read an image
and display it. But after that, things went reasonably
well. :-)

To be honest, despite my momentary set-back (which was
surely pilot error, I didn't read *any* of the 
documentation), it worked better than I expected it to.
Like ENVI, it is written in the IDL language. Unlike ENVI,
it is written as an object graphics program.

I only looked at it for five minutes, so I can't
really give an informed opinion, but it had quite a lot
of stuff built in. And I hear it can be extended.
I presume any display extensions will have to be
written in the object graphics system, which seems
like bad news to me, since that will probably be
a *tad* too much for the VIP target audience.

But, on the other hand, I can see some lucrative
consulting opportunities opening up, so that can't
be all bad. :-)

I'd definitely give it a look. I think it could be
a good thing for the right audience who didn't 
want to do too many things out of the ordinary.

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
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