Standalone windows install: why?

[Brian Blais]

John W. Eaton wrote:
> On 31-Mar-2005, Jianhong Wang <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> | I am interested to use a independent Window exe installation without
> | CygWin.
>
> Why do you want to do this?  

I would *love* to have a standalone windows install more recent than the 
 2.1.50, without having to do a cygwin install (and I'll check out the 
one posted), and I don't even run windows.

The reason is that I would really like to use octave in my teaching, and 
to get a student who doesn't know a lot about computers to install 
cygwin, and then octave, is extremely difficult.  I am trying to decide 
for a class whether to use scilab or octave, and I am leaning towards 
scilab for the simple reason that there is a reasonably robust single 
install.  I prefer octave for my work, and I would really prefer to use 
it in a class, but it is a lot to ask of a student without a lot of 
experience.

The installation of the 2.1.50 is *great*, but the version is just not 
new enough to be workable for me, because the scripts I write in my 
2.1.67 in Linux, break too often in the 2.1.50 Windows install.

Just thought I'd give my perspective on this, if it's any help.



                                Brian Blais


--
-----------------

            address@hidden
            http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais



-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------