gotwols@warper.jhuapl.edu (Bruce Gotwols) (08/06/90)
It is time to set up a remote FTP archive site in order to be able to easily share user written code amongst ourselves. I would happily volunteer to host the site but am not in a position to do so. Can anyone out there reading this volunteer to host a remote FTP site for a National IDL-PVWAVE library? Running the site itself is probably not too much effort -- but reviewing the routines is. I think we could probably automate the latter so that a standard preamble had to be included but otherwise let it go at that. From the preamble we could have a program extract a short description which could be included in a file containing a list of what programs are available. I am not in favor of reviewing the routines for robustness or accuracy. That would eventually lead to a bottleneck and would take a lot of someones time. With each routine containing the authors name and address it would be up to the author to maintain his/her own quality control. The first step is to agree on documentation requirements. That can be discussed here and I will summarize after a while. Then if someone volunteers to set up the FTP site we can start submitting programs. -- -- Bruce L. Gotwols Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Lab., Laurel MD 20723 Internet: gotwols@warper.jhuapl.edu (128.244.176.48)
rfinch@caldwr.water.ca.gov (Ralph Finch) (08/10/90)
In article <6184@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> gotwols@warper.jhuapl.edu (Bruce Gotwols) writes: > The first step is to agree on documentation requirements. That can >be discussed here and I will summarize after a while. I think that IDL/Wave have some sort of standard already for user-library functions, right? If so, would that serve for us? Does anybody know what that standard is? -- Ralph Finch 916-445-0088 rfinch@water.ca.gov ...ucbvax!ucdavis!caldwr!rfinch Any opinions expressed are my own; they do not represent the DWR
jones@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Mike Jones) (08/11/90)
In article <221@locke.water.ca.gov> rfinch@caldwr.water.ca.gov (Ralph Finch) writes: >In article <6184@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> gotwols@warper.jhuapl.edu (Bruce Gotwols) writes: >> The first step is to agree on documentation requirements. That can >>be discussed here and I will summarize after a while. > >I think that IDL/Wave have some sort of standard already for >user-library functions, right? If so, would that serve for us? Does >anybody know what that standard is? >-- >Ralph Finch 916-445-0088 >rfinch@water.ca.gov ...ucbvax!ucdavis!caldwr!rfinch >Any opinions expressed are my own; they do not represent the DWR That's right. We should make the documentation compatable with the doc_library routine. The best way to do that is to fill out the library template. On my (Wave on DS3100) Ultrix system that is in /usr/local/lib/wave/lib/template. On a VMS machine use lib/extr/out=template.pro wave$library On my VMS version, doc_library,'template' will give the template form. Don't just use the output of doc_library as the template, it strips the ;+ and ;- delimiters that are needed. Suprisingly the Ultrix call can't find the template file, but as I mentioned it is in the distribution kit. I've used this template for 5 years in IDL and Wave and find it quite useful, even for my own projects when I don't expect anyone else to read the code.
steve@bat.lle.rochester.edu (Steve Swales) (08/11/90)
In article <24608@boulder.Colorado.EDU> jones@crash.Colorado.EDU (Mike Jones) writes: >That's right. We should make the documentation compatable with >the doc_library routine. The best way to do that is to fill out the library >template. On my (Wave on DS3100) Ultrix system that is in >/usr/local/lib/wave/lib/template. On a VMS machine use >lib/extr/out=template.pro wave$library > >I've used this template for 5 years in IDL and Wave and find it quite >useful, even for my own projects when I don't expect anyone else to >read the code. I agree that using the 'standard' template is a good idea. I've actually been using a somewhat modified version of this template, so that i can run a filter on the code to make a UNIX-style manual page, This entails adding a few fields before the ;+ that a man page usually has, and which are useful to the programmer, but not really to the user. My template is: ; ; FILE: $proto.pro ; AUTHOR: $author ; DATE: $date (Created: $date) ; PURPOSE: $purpose ;+ ; SYNOPSIS: $proto ; DESCRIPTION: $purpose ;- The $ fields are filled in by my application templating code. My manual page generator looks for these keywords, but anthing between the ;+ and the ;- is basically copied verbatum to the manual page, so actually the 'standard' stuff would do just as well. Being a UNIX type, I'm used to just SYNOPSIS & DESCRIPTION, so I've found these sufficient, and more to the point than the many fields of the standard template. Much of what appears inside the standard template is of generally no interest to the user, IMHO. In any event, the fields BEFORE the ;+ can be included in addition to the stanard ones, to augment the file documentation, without interefering with the standard recognized by doc_library, so I would suggest that this extension (or something similar) be adopted. just my $.02. -steve -- -------------------------------------------------------+"Come, Watson, come!" Steve Swales (716) 275-0265,-3857,-5101| he cried. "The game is steve@bat.lle.rochester.edu (128.151.32.111)| afoot. Not a word! {decvax,harvard,ames,rutgers}!rochester!ur-laser!steve| Into your clothes and University of Rochester 250 East River Road| come!" S.H. Laboratory for Laser Energetics Rochester, NY 14623| 'The Abbey Grange'