[racket] Poll: Does anybody besides Doug use 'plot'?

From: Neil Toronto (neil.toronto at gmail.com)
Date: Fri Sep 30 11:34:15 EDT 2011

At Eli's suggestion, I'm conducting a poll. Does anybody on this list 
use the 'plot' module, or know of someone who does?

(I'm specifically excluding Doug Williams and his williams/science 
PLaneT package because I already know about that, and I don't want ten 
replies pointing it out.)

I'm asking because I have a replacement plot library ready, which has a 
lot more features and a richer API, and uses Racket's excellent drawing 
libraries. But the new library is not backward-compatible.

We're considering these two options for module names:

  1. The compatibility-breaking option:
     plot: new plot module
     plot/compat: backward-compatible wrapper for the new plot module

  2. The backward-compatible option:
     plot: backward-compatible wrapper for the new plot module
     rackplot: new plot module

(The old plot module is going away completely, to exorcise a lot of evil 
C code.)

The issues with each option:

  1. Breaking compatibility breaks past code. We don't know how much past
     code; hence the poll.

  2. Not breaking compatibility too easily breaks future code. Searching
     for "plot" in the manuals returns the old 'plot' module first.

Also, if you have ideas for the name of the new library, reply with 
them. 'rackplot' grows on me, but rather like a cheese mold.

Thanks!
Neil T


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