Advantages of IDL
IDL is a very good tool for scientific
programming and data analysis. It is:
- Similar to FORTRAN
- For people with a basic knowledge
of programming, IDL doesn't require the learning of a new language.
- Interactive
- A set of IDL commands may be executed
through a program or by typing them in on the command line.
- You can stop in the middle of a
program and display your data to see how calculations are progressing,
look at the current value of variables, reassign the values of variables,
etc.
- An array of data can be treated
as a single variable and manipulated with ease.
- e.g., x=[0,1,2,3,4,5] so x^2=[0,1,4,8,16,25]
- Remember, indexing in IDL is zero-based,
which means that the first index in an array is zero.
The newer versions of IDL also allow
straightforward calls to a basic set of widgets like dialog boxes, menus,
etc.
Bidushi Bhattacharya
Dept of Atmos Sciences
UCLA
19 April 1998
bhattach@atmos.ucla.edu