GDL - GNU Data Language Reviews

GDL is perfect in the usual use. We check the GDL, and want to exceed the original IDL.

Now GDL is not supporting MAC OS X 10.9 Mavericks. So can the developers update the GDL to be compatible with Mavericks? Thank you

Gnudatalanguage is great! Thanks.

Great job! Basic IDL programs work without a need for modification. Great response from the developers.

Hello all, finally I got something I was looking for a long time. Yesterday dowloaded GDL on my Ubuntu 12 by typing: >>sudo apt-get install gdl Installed flawlessly, but the first test building a wind rose (I am a meteorologist) was not quite a success. It says: >>>PLOT: Keyword parameter POLAR not allowed in call to: PLOT any workarounds about that issue? Am I, too demanding for a free version of IDL. Just wondering, if any other plotting rutines which have /polar keyword may help?

For interactive image processing at least the functionality of CURSOR, /NOWAIT of !MOUSE and of DEVICE, SET_GRAPHICS_FUNCTION=6 must be implemented correctly. Up to now this is not the case. The biggest handicap is the insufficient implementation of CURSOR. Although the crosshair is perfectly tracked in the graphics window, results are only returned when a mouse button is pressed. When I run PV_WAVE or IDL on the same machines (Linux: Kubuntu) everything works as expected. There are many shortcomings that require debugging and workarounds (e.g. you write an integer (2 bytes) to a file, and have to retrieve 4 bytes manually if you read it back), but the dynamic unnamed STRUCTURE works perfectly. So there is some hope that GDL may become a professional tool some time.

It is impressive how well GDL can run un-modified IDL programs. GDL can succeed to do with IDL what Yorick, Octave and Scilab failed to do for Matlab. Namely GDL can become a real free alternative to IDL. Many tahnks to those who contributed and to the project creator in the first place. The authors of GDL have understood the importance of full IDL language compatibility, to produce a critical mass of users, as opposed to Yorick, Octave and Scilab, who just created a variety of different incompatible dialect, with a too small user base to be really useful. GDL has the potential to become the standard language in astrophysics. What it needs to succeed is (i) keep finalizing small incompatibilities and (ii) improve execution speed: GDL still seems ~5-10 times slower than IDL on major, well-vectorized programs and (iii) publicity!

very useful! covers many IDL features

An excellent tool for almost all the data analysis purposes.

cover a large range of IDL syntax and modules.

That's a very good work.