3-D graphing software?

[Chris Jones]

Hi,

> 
> If you're going back to a 'programming languages' solution, you could also
> take a look at root (http://root.cern.ch), which has been providing event
> handling, statistics and graphing for the High Energy Physics community (it
> can actually do a lot more than that). It works as a C++ interactive
> interpreter but you can also compile your code with your favorite (well...)
> compiler. It is also multiplatform (Windows, Linux, Mac). It has a bit of a
> learning curve, but once you're done you got even better at C++, not some
> proprietary language.

Not everyone in the HEP community considers ROOT to be a blessing. I 
know, as I am one of them.

Root have many criticisms, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROOT

for some (not all) details. My personal least favourite features are the 
tendency to reinvent everything and the general lack of compatibility 
with STL.

Also, CINT (the C++ interpreter) is not all it is cracked up to be. My 
personal opinion is C++ is not a good language to try and write an 
interpreter for. CINT has tried and as a consequence allows non-valid 
C++ code through. This means CINT is a bad forum to learn C++, as you 
aren't aware of what it is doing right and wrong.

just a few words of warning.

Chris