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Re: statistics distributions function names
From: |
Mike Miller |
Subject: |
Re: statistics distributions function names |
Date: |
Fri, 24 Jun 2005 10:09:06 -0500 (CDT) |
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, John W. Eaton wrote:
On 23-Jun-2005, Ben Barrowes wrote:
| Why are the names for the distribution functions in
| /usr/local/share/octave/2.9.3/m/statistics/distributions/
| different from their ML counterparts?
I'm not certain, but it might be that some of the Octave functions were
written before the functions in Matlab. Or, it might be that they were
written at a time when there was not so much empasis on compatibility
with Matlab.
If you owuld like for this to improve, then please submit patches to
provide a compatibile interface. It would be best to keep the current
interface at least for a while, perhaps also having the incompatible
functions emit warnings.
I actually was an unpaid consultant working with the Mathworks on the
development of their stat toolbox. That's where many of these functions
are found. When I started using Octave a little later, I noticed some of
the names were different. I liked the Octave names better than the MATLAB
names. It looks like the problem is that the MATLAB names were developed
for MS Windows back when Windows 3.1 and DOS were still in use and every
filename had to be in 8.3 format. Octave was built for UNIX so it doesn't
have that limitation. Example: MATLAB uses the name poissinv.m and Octave
uses poisson_inv.m.
Someone suggested the use of aliases. How are aliases used in Octave?
We could use symbolic links.
Mike
--
Michael B. Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
and Institute of Human Genetics
University of Minnesota
http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/~mbmiller/
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