desired features for gp backend?

[John W. Eaton]

On 14-Jun-2009, Robert T. Short wrote:

| No, just the interface.  I did like the feature
| 
| gplot [x limits][y limits] ...
| 
| where I could set the x and y limits individually or leave either to the 
| defaults.  Also, since it was a really direct interface to gnuplot 
| instead of the current somewhat indirect interface, it was easier to 
| figure out what you needed to do to get things working.  Each 
| improvement you guys make simplifies the last anyway.

I've said many times that I think that trying to implement the gnuplot
syntax in Octave was a big mistake.  I wish I had never done it.  It
complicated the parser and introduced conflicts in the language.  The
syntax was never exactly like gnuplot, but people thought they were
typing gnuplot commands directly, so they couldn't figure out why
things like linewidth didn't work, and as gnuplot changed, Octave's
parser would have to change to keep the syntax and features similar.
If you like the gnuplot commnad language for making plots, then I
recommend that you save your data to a file and use gnuplot directly.

jwe