Re: Matlab central and octave

[address@hidden]

So I took a look at the link http://octave.dbateman.org (2 packages - optim &
parallel).
First of all, am I right that all your Octave optimization toolbox consist
just from 1 function - gls?
This seems to be so when I see your link
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Optimization.html#Optimization
3 subsections -
# Linear Programming
# Quadratic Programming
# Nonlinear Programming 
are empty and only 1 contains of gls. (I was seeking MATLAB linprog() analog
for my needs). So, am I right or wrong?
Next, at http://octave.dbateman.org I counted 5-6 solvers for nonsmooth
unconstrained (UC) optimization and 7-8 for smooth unconstrained - and
almost nothing for constrained (first of all I speak about fmincon analog).
I would say this amount of UC solvers is funny if it wasn't so sad. Even
MATLAB has just 1 UC smooth solver (fminunc), 1 constrained (fmincon), 1
nonsmooth (fminsearch). 
Moreover, calling sintax differs too much, it requires for users to rewrite
it very much, while trying these solvers. So, if users (as a rule, students
with their homework) will send each month 1 more UC solver, will you include
them to octave-forge? Even if it will be 0.5% better than all other? 
What about parallel toolbox - 2 funcs from 9 are undocumented (+some
undocumented funcs in optim). dfeval() analog - the firstest thing to
implement - is absent (I mean with same calling syntax y= dfeval(fun, x)).
So I'm absolutely agree with Soren hierarchy proposition, and that "it
requires contact with other human beings, which can be scary and takes
time." So users must initially prove octave-forge workers that their code is
actual & well-done. But what, for example, about some aerospace of medicine
m-file routines? who will check that they are essential & have enough
quality to be not just students homework? Or contain some bugs, yielding
wrong results? And what users should do - waste time for connecting their
code to octave-forge routines, trying to determing, does it good enough to
rely or no? And if there are some good ratings and reviews at matlab
filexchange area, users download only those (from large amount of students
homework) and are sure that it should be tried.
Also, it must include system of ratings, reviews and feedback. It will
demand some efforts for creating this web-interface only 1st time. Switching
Octave programmists to the job is not nesesary - you may hire for very small
money someone at GetAFreelancer.com or Scriptlance.com or any other
freelancer's site - doesn't matter, they are connected with each other.
WBR, D.


Soren Hauberg wrote:
> 
> 
> John W. Eaton skrev:
>> [Discussion moved from the help list]
>> 
>> With the package system for Octave, I can see the need for a
>> repository of contributed packages.  This repository could be hosted
>> at the Octave Forge site, but having a package available in the
>> repository should require that the package development is hosted at
>> Octave Forge.  Some people may prefer to have their package
>> development hosted elsewhere, or not even publicly available.
>> 
>> A prototype of the new Octave Forge site is here:
>> 
>>   http://octave.dbateman.org
>> 
>> Check the packages link for the current list of packages.  I think
>> the development of all these packages is currently hosted at the
>> Octave Forge site.  How difficult would it be to include "other"
>> packages that are not developed at the Octave Forge site in the new
>> package distribution page?  If we make that change, then perhaps there
>> should be a clearer separation between the collaborative development
>> site (Octave Forge) and the Octave package repository.  Perhaps then
>> people would begin to see Octave Forge as a collaborative development
>> site and not as the only way to make contributed code available.
> Getting code into octave-forge is fairly easy, but it requires contact 
> with other human beings, which can be scary and takes time. So we could 
> use a web page where people can publish their code with any human 
> interaction.
> 
> I'm not a huge fan of hosting such a system on sourceforge though. Other 
> sourceforge projects try to run my dynamic web pages using php (or 
> similar) but it's horribly slow on the SF servers. So, I think such a 
> system (should it ever come to exist) should run on some other server 
> than SF.
> 
> Today Octave-forge is IMHO kinda part of octave. It's like octave-forge 
> packages are unofficially blessed by the octave community. I think this 
> is a good thing -- if I download a package from octave-forge I can at 
> least expect it to work fairly well.
> 
> If we had an "Octave Central" I think we should introduce a hierarchy:
> 
>    "Octave" is stable code that everybody can use
>                      |
>                      |
>    "Octave-Forge" is a stable set of packages for people with specific 
> needs (image processing, etc)
>                      |
>                      |
>    "Octave Central" is user commited code where you shouldn't expect the 
> highest quality of code.
> 
>> In any case, I strongly agree with David that we need some people to
>> come forward and take on some of these kinds of tasks, otherwise it is
>> highly unlikely that anything will happen.
> I would expect that Free software exists for similar needs, so I don't 
> think we would have to start from scratch. One large issue I see is 
> still access to a decent server.
> 
> Soren
> 
> 

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