[SciPy-dev] Xplt problems

[Arnd Baecker]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Fernando Perez wrote:

> Travis Oliphant schrieb:
>
> > I'm not sure who that is.  My experience is not huge and I'm don't know
> > anyone with more experience than me (except the original authors and a
> > handful of others none of whom are active on the scipy lists)
> >
> > So, I'm writing to say sorry.  I don't think these issues will be
> > addressed before the next Enthon release...
>
> Quick question: is matplotlib going to be included in Enthon?  I was under the
> impression that (following the ASP discussion) the plan was to promote
> matplotlib more visibly for new users, leaving xplt/gplt & friends there only
> for existing users whose code relies on them.

I fear we belong to this class of existing users -
both in our research codes and also for our
computational physics course.

> I view xplt/gplt as stop-gap measures which will ultimately be replaced by
> matplotlib and/or Chaco, so I would rather see the developer's limited
> resources go towards other fronts.  But perhaps I'm misinterpreting something
> in the 'plan'.

I think there is no doubt that matplotlib produces
nicer looking plots than scipy.xplt.
However, there are a couple of strong points for xplt:
  * xplt is one of the fastest plotting packages under python
    I am aware of
    (only the pgplot or ppgplot wrappers are faster)
  * Mouse interactivity using `mouse`,
    which waits for a click, is extremely simple to code
  * dynamic plots work quite well and fast
  * contouring is available
((in some sense one can read this as a wish-list for matplotlib
and I know that some of them such as contouring are being addressed.
But this discussion should be done
on the matplotlib mailing, backed up by a few examples
we already prepared - stay tuned on this ;-))

Overall scipy.xplt is pretty light-weight
and it runs  even on older machines reasonably fast.
This is quite important for us, as we have
quite a few students who still use a PII 350 MHz...

Best,

Arnd