Re: Old windows binaries on OF

[Mike Miller]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 15:10:30 +0100, Julien Bect wrote:
> For instance, since the 1st of January, 1833 persons have downloaded windows
> binaries for Octave 3.6.4, which is the latest available from SF.

It's very important to note here that this particular binary is the most
recent build of Octave that was made with the Microsoft Visual compiler.
I would venture to guess that most users downloading that particular
binary are doing so intentionally, not accidentally, because there
simply is no newer version available.

The binaries with the next highest counts are installers for 3.2.4 and
3.6.4 under MinGW, which do seem obsolete, along with many or all of the
others in that directory.

> Isn't this a sign a few README.md files here and there would be useful on
> the OF FRS?

Or some careful updating of the wiki page that contains old instructions
and direct links to many of these installers:

  http://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Microsoft_Windows

Or some rearranging of the files in the "Windows binaries" directory,
maybe leaving the Visual Studio one alone but moving all of the others
into an old / obsolete subdirectory?

> PS: also, last year, 432 persons have downloaded the "latest" monolithic
> release of OF, which dates back to 2009...

This one could probably safely be considered obsolete. I can't find any
links to it on the wiki or documentation, this is probably found through
simple browsing of the available downloads.

If I am simply navigating SourceForge, and I click on the project's
Files area, I see one category called "Octave Forge" and one called
"Octave Forge Packages". If all I know is "I want to download Octave
Forge", I may very well try the one called "Octave Forge" first.

-- 
mike