PiScript

We are going to be working with a program I call PiScript, which is largely a Python interface to PostScript. PostScript is itself the programming language used by printers; Python is a programming language that was developed a bit more than 15 years ago, and it has recently become reasonably popular.

I first developed PiScript as drawing tool around 3 years ago, and it has grown since. I use it myself almost exclusivley to produce graphics in mathematics. This year at the BMS, a fair part of the code is not mine, but was written by David Maxwell, now in the mathematics department of the University of Alaska.

The principal feature of PiScript is how it allows TEX to be placed in figures.

• Manual for PiScript (.pdf) (including a short outline of Python in an appendix)
• Home page of Python

There is a home page for PiScript, but it is not up-to-date. That shouldn't matter, because:

• You can download here the file piscript.tar.gz which is the current if somewhat experimental PiScript 0.9999. (It is 24 MB!) There have been extensive revisions over the past year, and a full blown version 1.0 ought to be available soon.

  As I have said, you do not have to download your own copy of this yet - the package is available on BMS computers in my home directory.