Re: 2 linear eq

[Paul Laub]

Dear all, 

My 2 cents: we need to encourage new users, so welcome
them and answer their questions. I'll try too. 

My self-interested reason: I used to be a Matlab user,
and have mostly good things to say about that program.
However, I now work for a biotech startup in Silicon Valley
that is perennially a month or two away from the first big
gig ... and the first visit of the repo man. Unlike
Matlab, Octave and gnuplot are priced right. I've done
lots with each, just this afternoon in fact. If our
company survives, Octave will deserve some credit. 

Open source projects like Octave offer people like me
opportunity. Let's expand this opportunity to everyone,
especially new users. 

Plus, I've asked my share of newbie questions here, as
a search of the archives will show. And you people
answered them! 

Paul Laub 

"Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems."
-- Robert Plant 


On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 07:07:57 +0100, Paul Thomas <address@hidden> wrote:
> >> Is his "octave help"?  I think we can be friendly even when people ask
> >> stupid questions.  Let's allow people who don't know any math and have
> >> never used octave before to come here and ask questions.  Where else can
> >> they go?  If they bug you, don't answer.
> 
> Exactly!  By the way, I think that we all forget, at our peril, the
> conceptual hump that we all got over with octave/matlab.  The conciseness of
> the language, which is so much its attraction, is very difficult for people
> that have no programming training or were brought up on fortran/C.  Looking
> back at my own notes, I am just embarrassed at my early attempts (- some say
> that I should still be embarrassed.....!).
> 
> Let's just get on with helping Shih Lin to where he wants to be.
> 
> Paul T



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