RE: statistics distributions function names

[Mike Miller]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 address@hidden wrote:

> On 24-Jun-05 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.
>
> The initial systematic provision of a suite of statistical functions, 
> including the distributions (with their current names), was done by Kurt 
> Hornik around 1995, or even earlier. I don't know when the equivalent 
> came in with MatLab, but I'm pretty sure that in those days there was 
> indeed less emphasis on MatLab compatibility, and Kurt just chose what 
> seemed to be good names (which they are).

I think the MATLAB statistics toolbox came out in 1994.  I wrote a review 
that year.  Then I advised the developer for version 2.0 in 1995.

The use of *inv.m, *cdf.m, *pdf.m and *rnd.m is the same for both 
products, which could reflect either coincidence or mimicry.  I think it's 
mimicry of MATLAB naming conventions, which is fine.  MATLAB also has a 
collection of *stat.m files, that we don't have, and files cdf.m and 
pdf.m.  More here:

http://bass.gmu.edu/matlab/toolbox/tstats.html

We have to address a broader question:  When MATLAB comes out with a new 
toolbox with a bunch of new functions, should we always try to produce 
functions with the same names that do the same things?  Maybe we should 
just try to replicate the base system features.

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/



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