[SciPy-dev] wgnuplot.exe dependency in 0.3.2

[Travis Oliphant]

Pearu Peterson wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, Joe Cooper wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm working on the next revision of Enthon today, and it looks like 
>> wgnuplot.exe has been introduced as a dependency of SciPy on Windows 
>> without being documented anywhere.  Someone else ran into this last 
>> month, but there were no responses.
>>
>> Here's the error:
>>
>> running install_data
>> error: can't copy 'Lib\gplt\wgnuplot.exe': doesn't exist or not a 
>> regular file
>>
>> A cursory glance at the setup code tells me that wgnuplot.exe doesn't 
>> have to be in Lib\ but it does have to exist in one of the other 
>> locations distutils is searching.
>>
>> Can I get a clarification on whether adding this dependency was 
>> intentional? I'd like to add it to the build instructions for 
>> Windows, if it will remain a dependency.
>
>
> Unless windows users will speak up loudly, I would remove wgnuplot.exe 
> from scipy CVS repository. A source code repository is a wrong place 
> to save binary programs, especially if they are platform dependent.


+1

>
>> I'm happy to add it to Enthon, if it provides additional 
>> functionality that people are using, but I don't want to 
>> unnecessarily complicate the package with dozens of competing tools 
>> (it's already 90MB in size in the last version, and there's at least 
>> 10MB worth of new packages going into the next version, and no 
>> significant removals).
>
>
> gplt requires gnuplot. So, if windows users use gplt, wgnuplot.exe 
> should be added to Enthon.

I don't know how many users of windows use gplt.  I've encountered 
problems where wgnuplot.exe doesn't die and starts taking up all 
resources on the machine until it is manually killed and so I don't use 
it on Windows.  I would not be sad to see it not included. 

It does provide surface plots, but I would rather see that done with MayaVi.

-Travis