Re: Starting using octave

[Tomer Altman]

If the major source of your consternation was in tweaking the font,
I'd say you got off rather lucky!

For the ultimate Octave hacking experience, I'd recommend running it
from within Emacs ( NT Emacs, in your case ), with Octave-Mode
on. That will give you about as much editor as one can handle. ;-)

~Tomer


On Nov 30, 2003 at 3:54am, acoohdb wrote:

acoohd >Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 03:54:08 -0600
acoohd >From: acoohdb <address@hidden>
acoohd >To: address@hidden
acoohd >Subject: Starting using octave
acoohd >Resent-Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:44:12 -0600
acoohd >Resent-From: address@hidden
acoohd >Resent-To: help-octave <address@hidden>
acoohd >
acoohd >
acoohd >This is just an observation, for what it's worth.
acoohd >
acoohd >I did download octave, the 'complete' windows version, and after some
acoohd >setting up (particularly setting the appropriate font) it seemed to be
acoohd >functioning.
acoohd >
acoohd >However I had some problem deciphering the philosopy of it's
acoohd >functioning, and eventually gave up. Probably it would have been fine
acoohd >had I been given a short lecture on it, but the help didn't seem to be
acoohd >that helpful.
acoohd >
acoohd >There are a number of 'styles' for mathematical/numerical programs that
acoohd >I am familiar with. We have 'spreadsheet', and a variety of program
acoohd >styles. I am familiar with pascal (turbo), basic and assembler. So, I'm
acoohd >pretty inexperienced, in probably a narrow range, but not as green as
acoohd >(say) a student. It's *very* unusual for me not to get an unknown
acoohd >program up and running and in use relatively quickly with intelligent
acoohd >use of what help is available.
acoohd >
acoohd >I would expect all modern programs to have a full-blown editor included,
acoohd >and in the default (obviously capable of replacement for one of your own
acoohd >choice if preferred). I would expect to start in the editor, and be able
acoohd >to put in a sequence of instructions and run them. I would expect to be
acoohd >able to save these instructions and edit them in full-screen, that is be
acoohd >able to 'go up' and modify any bits of code that turned out to be wrong.
acoohd >
acoohd >As far as I could see the basic editor in octave seemed to be a line
acoohd >editor, and there didn't seem to be any way to 'list' the actual
acoohd >sequence of commands that octave was actually interpreting.
acoohd >
acoohd >After quite a bit of looking at various helps, and trying the sort of
acoohd >thing that works on other bits of software, I gave up and after a month
acoohd >deleted it.
acoohd >
acoohd >Since it is clear to me from reading this listserver that octave is a
acoohd >powerful piece of software and clearly highly regarded by many, I think
acoohd >this is a pity. I post this for comment, if anyone is interested.
acoohd >
acoohd >



-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------