Re: speeding up Octave development (was: Re: m-code)

[Huaiyu Zhu]

On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, John W. Eaton wrote:

> There is already an octave-maintainers mailing list, which I presume
> serves the same purpose as a devel-octave list would.
> 
> Contributed files that are posted to the octave-sources mailing list
> or sent directly to me are already included as I have time and as I
> see fit.
> 
> So, I don't see how these suggestions would actually change anything,
> except for the name of the octave-maintainers mailing list.
> 

The difference is that m files would be clearly labelled as of different
category, so that you will not feel any negative effect, _whatever_ is put
in the contrib subtree.

I'm thinking of the model of LaTeX, where many of the packages are just
hacks for overnight projects.  Still many people find them useful.

As you said, many scientists using numerical techniques may be in a
position to contrib m files, except that these files are not of "hacker
quality".  Well, if the basic algorithm is there, others may be able to
improve usability later on.


Huaiyu