Gnuplot 5.0

[Jonathan Stickel]

On 1/2/15 02:41 , Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I need advice what to do with the upgrade to Gnuplot 5.0.
> (It's not released yet, but the release is planned very soon.)
>
> There have been some backward-incompatible changes. Most users will
> (only?) notice the change of default colours though. I didn't test any
> software that depends on gnuplot yet.
>
> In the long run I would prefer to see just a single copy of gnuplot
> shipped with MacPorts, but I'm not 100% sure that simply upgrading to
> 5.0 won't affect users.
>
> I would be inclined towards making a variant that would install
> version 4.6 rather than 5.0, so that users experiencing problems with
> version 5 could quickly switch back to 4.6 without the need to change
> any dependent ports. I know that this is against "common practice",
> but in contrast to some libraries, installing a different version of
> gnuplot should not have any influence on software that depends on
> gnuplot (like octave).
>
> An alternative would be to make several ports (maybe gnuplot and
> gnuplot4?) and fix all dependent ports accordingly.
>
> (A Portfile for gnuplot 5.0.rc3 is in SVN, inside
> users/mojca/ports/math/gnuplot.)
>
> Any thoughts? Suggestions? Opinions?
>
> Thank you,
>      Mojca
>

Mojca

I presume I was cc'd on this because I maintain qalculate-gtk that has a 
variant dependence on gnuplot. I personally do not use this variant, nor 
do I use gnuplot in any other way, and hence I do not much care about 
gnuplot. I can't speak for other users of qalculate-gtk, but I suspect 
they are few and will not notice a change. Nonetheless, making gnuplot4 
and gnuplot5 ports would be the Macports way, so that is what I recommend.

Regards,
Jonathan