Dynamically Generating a Graph in Python

[Ivan Herman]

You put me in a strange situation... it is not my goal to compare gnuplot and pychart, I 
am just a messenger... I am not even sure that the two are comparable, to be fair (to both).

Pychart (as far as I am concerned) is a small and lean package to do statistical charts 
and nothing else. Gnuplot is *much* more than that, it is more powerful and, consequently, 
complex. Personally, my problem with gnuplot was that it lacked, for example, any 
pie-chart facility (it is a topic of debates on the relevant mailing lists, b.t.w.) and I 
was simply too lazy;-) to do start learning gnuplot and do it myself. In any case: I am 
afraid we are comparing apples and oranges here.

As for the remark of the author you quote below... I let him defend himself if he reads 
these lines. Personally, I do not care about it.

Ivan


Fernando Perez wrote:
> Ivan Herman wrote:
> 
> 
>>If this is indeed what he means:-) I began to use PyChart last week:
>>
>>http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Yasushi_Saito/pychart/
>>
>>I is o.k. for relatively simple statistical charts, and may produce output in
>>SVG, PS, PDF, PNG, and interactive X11 display
> 
> 
> With all due respect for the author of this tool, I have a really hard time with
> comments like this on his page:
> 
> Gnuplot.
> A long-time favorite of researchers. But its output is not up to publishing
> standard, in my opinion.
> 
> Gnuplot has been around for many years (I've used it since 1991), and its
> postscript is extremely good.  Definitely far better than any of the examples
> shown in the pychart page, all of which have that god-awful look of Excel cheap
> charts.
> 
> In python, for the last few years I've been using (yes, for real research)
> gnuplot with much success (with Gnuplot.py and the enhancements which ipython
> ads), and right now I'm in the process of switching to matplotlib (and doing
> much work so that ipython supports matplotlib for interactive work).  
> 
> IMHO, matplotlib has a very clean design which makes it a great tool to bet on
> for the future, with very good functionality, high quality output, and is being
> actively developed by a strong team (not just John Hunter, but also the good
> folks from the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute).
> 
> Just my $.02,
> 
> f
>