Re: Compatability and an engineer's perspective

[Przemek Klosowski]

On 07/15/2012 07:02 PM, Jonathan Lister wrote:

> So, when I can take the Signal Processing Toolbox from Octave and run it
> in MATLAB it allows me to prove (in a more credible way) that Octave is
> a sound alternative.

But why do you want to run this Octave toolbox on Matlab? If Octave code 
requires Octave, Matlab users can always try Octave. If Matlab code 
requires Matlab, users can't just come up with Matlab on a short notice, 
so Octave tries to emulate as much of Matlab language as it can.

Of course anyone can chose to avoid Octave language extensions if they 
want to offer their software to both Matlab and Octave users. It seems 
to me that Mathworks actually discourages such sharing---I seem to 
remember that Matlab Central forbids running even user-contributed code 
in non-Matlab environment. It seems to me that Octave-friendly Matlab 
users such as yourself should contact Mathworks and suggest to them more 
cooperation in areas such as:

- adopting the best Octave language extensions
- coordinating future language extensions with Octave developers
- promoting not hampering third-party code compatibility
- making Central licensing more cooperation-friendly

I personally think this would help their business, by broadening their 
market. As it is, they seem to studiously pretend to not notice Octave, 
but the cat is out of the bag. These are my own opinions, based on my 
personal experience, anyway.