Re: Comparison of Octave and Matlab functions

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 28 February 2012 17:05, tom yengst <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm trying to convince a large research facility to move from Matlab
> to Octave. This is not so hard for software developer types, but more
> difficult for a typical user. While the online documentation for
> Octave provides detailed information on each Octave function, has
> anyone created a table that compares Octave function, its equivalent
> Matlab counterpart, the package/toolbox that it's a part of, and any
> differences between the two?

It's difficult to compile such a list and keep it up to date since
both Octave and Matlab are moving targets. People have attempted those
lists in the past, but they quickly become obsolete. Sadly, the best
you can do is run the Matlab code in Octave and see how it fares. The
newer the Octave version, the closer the compatibility. As our users
keep finding more differences, we are continuously chasing after
Matlab compatibility (much to my chagrin, because I personally find
Matlab to be a very ugly language).

An important caveat that keeps showing up in (imho questionable)
benchmarks: many Matlab users immediately notice that the Octave
interpreter is very slow, and unvectorised code suffers greatly.
Please email me privately if you think your workplace could co-sponsor
a JIT compilation effort that is brewing.

In the meantime, I've tried to write a better code vectorisation guide
for Octave:

   
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Vectorization-and-Faster-Code-Execution.html

HTH,
- Jordi G. H.