Re: [OctDev] A few (Octave) ideas

[Shai Ayal]

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:18 PM, <address@hidden> wrote:

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From: address@hidden
To: address@hidden; address@hidden
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 14:33:15 -0400
CC: address@hidden
Subject: [OctDev] A few (Octave) ideas

Hello all,

<snip>

I've also got another idea concerning packages.  I was reading through the Octave manual the other day and saw the various difference pkg functions and urlwrite.  Anyway, to cut to the chase, I think it'd be very useful and very easy to implement an extra pkg option to automatically download and install Octave-Forge packages.  We could keep a small text file on one of the Octave sites containing package names along with their dependencies and download URLs.  The new function would download this file, parse it, and then do nothing more than download packages with urlwrite and install them with pkg install (as well as ensuring that dependent packages are installed first).  It'd be awesome if you could take a fresh install of Octave and simply type in something like 'pkg get vrml'.  I'd LOVE to program this much at least and would like to hear what all of your thoughts are on such an idea.

 

And my 2cents:

R has a pretty robust and comprehensive system of packages which can be automatically downloaded, compiles and installed from a list of mirrors. It would be best to try and copy their system and not invent the wheel again:

http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/

Shai