Re: dirac(x) and heaviside(x)

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

2010/12/7 John W. Eaton <address@hidden>:
> Currently this just prints a special message for core Matlab
> functions.  Extending it for package functions would not be hard, but
> who maintains the list of functions?

Soren, I guess? The list of available functions does seem to be
maintained. It's that link to the alphabetical list of functions I
provided earlier. The problem is that it's currently disconnected from
the core Octave distribution.

Weren't 'Forge releases in the past made to coincide with Octave
releases, in the Paul Kienzle days? I remember something like this.

> Do Matlab users typically not know that a function they are using
> comes from a Matlab Toolbox(TM) instead of Matlab?

I don't know about this.

We do get many Octave users coming from Matlab, and they're very often
students who are trying to run code that their instructor gave them.
They grab said code, they try it in Octave, they find some function
that isn't there, and then confusion happens. Often they use Matlab in
computer labs where all of the toolboxes necessary to run the
instructor's code is installed. We seem to get plenty of these cases
in the help mailing list, and I've observed them in #octave too.

Perhaps if the missing.html page just mentioned Octave-Forge with the
same link I provide to the alphabetical list of functions? This could
be easy and it would still allow for the decoupling of Octave and
'Forge. Maybe this decoupling is desirable in order to let package
authors make releases more frequently than Octave.

- Jordi G. H.