Re: Matlab Compatibility (Was: The future of Octave (Matlab))

[Rafael Laboissiere]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2000 at 12:43:26PM -0800, Kevin Straight wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> The matlab option would read through the script and clean up all the
> little differences like '|' and '||'.  Then it would pass it to octave to
> execute.  
> 
> The advantage of this approach is that anyone who needed matlab
> compatibility could go and download the matlab module.  Those who think
> that compatibility is a major priority could spend their time improving
> this module without bothering the rest of us.  That way, we could all use
> Octave, and there wouldn't be a split--just an accesory program to solve
> the problem.
> 
> Comments?  Would this work?

For those "little differences", the answer is probably yes.  However, for
the majority of items people are interested in (sparse matrices, handle
graphics, etc) I do not see how this simple approach would work without
changing Octave's core in an almost Matlab compatible way.  It is exactly
this kind of compatibility pursuit that jwe is justifiably trying to avoid.

Full Matlab compatibility is a holy grail.  Let us abandon this goal.

-- 
Rafael Laboissiere



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