Preface

I have been using gnuplot for 15 years, and it’s an indispensable part of my toolset: one of the handful of programs I can’t do without.

Initially, I used gnuplot as part of my academic research work as a theoretical condensed matter physicist. But much later, when I joined Amazon.com, I found myself using gnuplot again, this time to analyze the movement of workers in Amazon’s gargantuan warehouses and the distribution of packages to customers. Later yet, I found gnuplot helpful when analyzing web traffic patterns for the Walt Disney Company.

I find gnuplot indispensable because it lets me see data, and do so in an easy, uncomplicated manner. Using gnuplot, I can draw and redraw graphs and look at data in different ways. I can generate images of data sets containing millions of points, and I can script gnuplot to create graphs for me automatically.

These things matter. In one of my assignments, I was able to discover highly relevant information because I was able to generate literally hundreds of graphs. Putting all of them on a web page next to each other revealed blatant similarities (and differences) between different data sets—a fact that had never before been noticed, not least because everybody else was using tools (mostly Excel) that would only allow graphs to be created one at a time.