Important Research Project

[mecej4]

E.D.G. wrote:
> "dave_w" <dave.willmer at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1188500139.411988.127100 at q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> 
> My main Perl program is presently about 3500 lines of code long and 160 KB
> in size. So I am not too anxious to translate it into another language.
> 
Apparently, having painted himself into a corner, our warrior wants a 
few expert roofers to slither up and extricate him.

One of the best experiences that a programmer can have is that of 
admitting that the lovingly nurtured brainchild is now terminally ill, 
and showing enough fortitude to make a fresh start.

> The problem I am having is largely with the mechanics of linking modules to
> the Perl compiler etc.  So I am looking for experts who can help with
> cookbook instructions, start with step 1, step 2, step 3 etc.

Experts saintly enough to salvage the possibly hopeless would some idea 
of whether they are being asked to donate their time to work on a 
fundamentally flawed design.

> With trying to find a chart program to use for example, there appear to be a
> number of them.  But from examining their instructions it looks like most of
> them must also be linked to a third program called Gnuplot.  And that
> increases the complexity of getting something running.
> 

Since Perl, as also most other general purpose languages, has no 
plotting primitives or intrinsics,
you will have to use _some_ graphics protocol -- there is no escaping that.

Gnuplot is by no means the only choice, but it is simple and provides
a wide selection of output devices. Your Perl program can write the plot 
script to a
file, and call Gnuplot to run that script.

-- mecej4