Ode to Octave (and its older cousin, too ...)

[forkandwait]

Hi everyone, but especially the maintainers --

Having spent all weekend hacking on a forecasting project which I hope will 
make me a million dollars (or so) someday, I just wanted to mention what a joy 
Octave/ M*** is to use, and how grateful I am to have a free version that runs 
so well.

I would also mention that M*** was my first mathematical programming language 
almost 10 years ago, then I worked in (mostly) Python (scilab and friends) and 
R for the last seven or so years of work and grad school; now I work a lot in 
SAS.  Octave and M are BY FAR the best of the mathematical languages out 
there.  M** syntax is the clearest and simplest, the automatic loading of m-
files in the path is awesome, the command line is very effective, the "demo" 
and "test" functions make debugging and developing far easier than ipython or 
the R terminal, etc, etc, etc.

So -- first a word to all the people debating between Octave/ M** versus R, 
Python, or (God help you) SAS:  Octave is what you want, period.

And second, a word to JWE, Soren, and all the others whose names I don't know 
-- THANKS.  And if I ever hit seven digits, I promise to hire someone to hack 
on Octave code.

F&W