Re: Contribution to the optimization toolbox

[John W. Eaton]

On  4-Sep-2009, Leonardo Martins wrote:

| 1) Regarding tests, has anyone ever considered interfacing
| Octave/Optim Toolbox with CUTEr (http://hsl.rl.ac.uk/cuter-www/) for
| more standardized testing? It can be a lot of work, but in the long
| run I guess Octave can benefit from knowing exactly where it stands if
| compared to other optimization software.

I haven't looked to see how CUTEr actually works, but I noticed that
it is distributed under a "non-commercial use only" license that is
incompatible with the GPL.  Whether this matters or not depends on
precisely how it is used.

| 2) It seemed to me that, in a first moment, rather than adding new
| algorithms to the codebase, it would be more beneficial to build a
| more "homogeneous and coordinated" toolbox, and only then make it
| "complete." Am I right?

What you decide to work on is your choice, but I would agree that
cleaning up what is already there might make the most sense as a place
to start.

| That rises another question: what criteria are
| used to determine whether a tool goes to the core/(from) toolbox?

Some of it is just history.  Long ago, everything was considered for
the core distribution.  Then came Octave Forge, then more formal
packages.  Some things have moved from Octave to packages.  Other
things have been moved to Octave.  Generally, I think it makes sense
for us to include in the core Octave distribution the things that
users expect to have with the base Matlab package, and for (at least
some of) the packages to cover what are in the corresponding Matlab
toolboxes.  It is not that we are slavishly cloning, but it seems most
useful for users who are using Octave to run code that was originally
written for Matlab.

It is important that if you choose to implement functions that are
also present in Matlab, that you NOT use any Matlab M-files as a basis
for your own implementation.  Your work must be independent and not a
derivative of any Matlab code.

If you plan to be working on Octave, then please join the maintainers
mailing list.

Also, for Octave, we try to use the term "package" instead of
"toolbox".

Thanks,

jwe