Re: Wikibook on octave

[David Bateman]

Nicolas Pettiaux wrote:
> I have started a wikibook on octave by duplicating and adapting the
> Matlab wikibook, with the approval (not needed though) of its author.
>
> I unfortunately do not have the time to work on it as much as I could
> like. I first proposed to the Matlab wikibook author to make ONE book
> about both, but he wished that they would be different but said he would
> help if possible.
>
> I would like to show and write something that could be used by beginners
> and intermediate users too, telling that octave can really replace
> matlab. So, I would like that this book helps at that too.
>
> Please contribute and do not hesitate to copy the Matlab wikibook pages:
>
> see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OCTAVE_Programming and
>
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nicolas
>

Hi Nicolas,

I'm not sure I see the interest in creating a separate WikiBook for
Octave, though of course we value the effort. My reasoning is that as
incompatibilities between Matlab and Octave are in most cases considered
as bugs, then the Matlab WikiBook should in an ideal world equally apply
to Octave. Therefore you are creating additional work for yourself in
writing a separate contribution and you'll have to continually keep
chasing the original document and porting changes between version.

I believe a better way would be to request that the original document
includes a section of Octave specific issues to allow the dwindling
number of differences between Octave and Matlab to be discussed. Having
it integrated in the original document would also make the task of
evangelizing Octave that much easier as well..

Regards
David



-- 
David Bateman                                address@hidden
Motorola Labs - Paris                        +33 1 69 35 48 04 (Ph) 
Parc Les Algorithmes, Commune de St Aubin    +33 6 72 01 06 33 (Mob) 
91193 Gif-Sur-Yvette FRANCE                  +33 1 69 35 77 01 (Fax) 

The information contained in this communication has been classified as: 

[x] General Business Information 
[ ] Motorola Internal Use Only 
[ ] Motorola Confidential Proprietary