Pierre wrote:

My plotting format needs are not met by standard graphing applications,
hence I have written my own solutions. In addition to specific plot formats,
there are also specific ways to sort, find, omit, etc. columns of graphical
data.

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Well, Kaleidagraph's two scripting languages (one for the work flow, 
the other for maths; and the app additionally supports AppleScript) 
does quite a good job for "sort, find, omit, etc. columns of 
graphical data"), but I admit that there are tasks that are much more 
involved or far away from the mainstream. Anyway, you might have a 
look at the demo version.

Now, alternatives to FB...
I don't see any procedural language with perspective for the Mac. 
That said you will have to learn the basics of OOP and then decide 
which language is most appealing for you. I've decided to use Java, 
but it took me about 2 months to reach an acceptable level. This was 
back in 2005 and maybe some obstacles (mainly concerning 
platform-independence and browser-applets) have meanwhile been 
removed.

Perhaps you start with a visit at SUN's Java-website. There you will 
find a good tutorial that however doesn't communicate much 
understanding of OOP which you will need sometime.

Perhaps others chime in and report about their learning of ObjC...

Best
-- 

                   Herbie

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          <http://www.gluender.de>