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Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:34:01 +0100
From: Georg Bauhaus <see.reply.to@maps.futureapps.de>
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Subject: Re: ANN: Ada bindings to PLplot plotting software
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Date: 2009-01-03T01:34:03+01:00
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Jerry wrote:
> This is to announce the official availability of the Ada language
> bindings to the plotting package PLplot as of version 5.9.1. See the
> home page at http://plplot.sourceforge.net/. Available unofficially
> for some time, the Ada bindings are now enabled by default.
 [...]
> The Ada bindings offer a number of substantial improvements over the C
> API, including a choice of binding, one using "traditional" PLplot
> names such as plcol0(1) to set the pen color to red, the other using
> "Ada-friendly" names such as Set_Color(Red).

Skimming the PLplot examples, which are given for several
languages (http://plplot.sourceforge.net/examples.php),
I noticed that all examples mirror the fortranesque C library
functions more or less directly.  (6char names with a "pl" prefix
making them 8char, tons of numeric parameters; I understand that
"these examples also serve as a testbed for the bindings in Ada
and other languages by checking the Postscript files that are
generated by each example against those generated by the C
versions.")

However, authors of some bindings including this Ada
one have added "a number of substantial improvements over
the C API". (Set_Color(Red) seems so much better than plcol0(1),
even when it does not name the thing that is turned red;
I don't want to sound complaining, in particular having
done nothing on this work).  That's somewhat hidden
from the web presentation, though, I think.
Can I put an item on the Plplot binding wish list?
That would be: show some examples that use the thick
bindings, on the web pages.  Maybe these examples using
thick bindings will then help some demonstrate why they are
using a language that offers more than Fortran 77 style C.

I'm still looking for an alternative for some Perl-driven
GNUplot command scripts, so I'm really happy to see PLplot
growing into the post-70s era ;-)