In article <rjh-0911961407280001 at nntp.stanford.edu>,
rjh at leland.stanford.edu (Robert Hohlfelder) wrote:
> I'm too scared of Igor's learning curve. However, the people I know who
> use Igor _really_ like it, and it seems to have extremely powerful fitting
> and data manipulation capabilities.
Igor's learning curve really isn't THAT steep. At Cornell, we use it in
the undergraduate chemistry labs without any problems. A fair percentage
of our students have NO programming experience coming in. By the end of
the term, the students are comfortable writing fairly detailed programs in
Igor's macro language.
Igor is one of those programs that you learn one step at a time, as your
needs grow. First you learn the basic graphing functions (which have a
very straightforward GUI). Then you learn simple analysis (curve fitting,
etc.). And then you start writing macros. . .
Igor is truly addictive. For 2D data display and analysis, there is little
that Igor can't do. In 3D, I can't make such a sweeping generalization,
but things are coming along by leaps and bounds. Right now, the 3D
capabilities of Igor are comparable to other programs that I have used.
Give the guys at WaveMetrics another 6 mos or so, and Igor will reign
supreme in this area as well.
You can pick up the demo by ftp'ing to d31rz0.stanford.edu.
Melissa
--
Melissa A. Hines Voice/FAX: (607) 255-3040
Dept. of Chemistry E-mail: Melissa.Hines at Cornell.edu
Cornell University
