Re: Top 10 IDL Requests

[Martin Schultz <martin.schultz(at)dkrz.de>]

David Fanning wrote:
> 
> [...]
> One of the people I ran into at the picnic was the
> new VP of Software Engineering. After we were introduced
> and it was pointed out that I was, uh, the person who
> wrote "that book about IDL" the VP gave me his e-mail
> and phone extension and encouraged me to submit my
> top 10 IDL requests to him personally.
> 
> Wow! You don't get an opportunity like this every day. :-)
> [...]
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> David

   Try to keep it short for there are sooo many wishes (BTW: what does
this tell us?)

(1) multithreading
(2) complement keyword to where
(3) end of array syntax (I can't see why A[*-5] should not be feasible)
(4) working contour routine and map projections (simple example:
    IDL> map_set,limit=[-60,-180,60,360]
    IDL>
map_continents                                                                                
    should give America twice, I think ...
(4a) ... and more sophisticated map labels, e.g. 60 (degreesymbol) N
instead of
    just 60 as an option.
(5) improved color handling for TV and TVRD
(6) adapt a colorbar and a legend procedure (e.g. from the ESRG
library). This is
    something basic enough that it should be maintained by RSI - even
though everyone
    will be free to use something different
(7) an "IN" operator, e.g. selected = where(species in ['Ozone', 'NOx',
'CO'])
(8) higher level graphic objects, e.g. extending your XPLOT, **and** a
contour object
    and map support! The high level plot object should allow things
like:
       XPlot = obj_new('Xplot',x=x,y=sin(x))     ; generate and show
object
       XPlot->Add,x=x2,y=cos(x2)                 ; add another data set
       XPlot->SetProperty,curve=2,psym=8,line=2  ; modify properties of
second curve
    etc.

Since I start dreaming again, I better stop here.

Cheers (from wonderful but cloudy Germnay),
Martin




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[[ Dr. Martin Schultz   Max-Planck-Institut fuer Meteorologie    [[
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[[ martin.schultz@dkrz.de                                        [[
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