Re: How to install Octave 4.0.1 on OS X Yosemite

[Mike Miller]

Hey,

This re-awakened thread caught my attention and I wanted to offer my
perspective on a couple of things. Note that I am in no way an OS X
user, don't know the difference between a Snow Leopard and a Yosemite,
so feel free to ignore me or tell me to mind my own business as you
like.

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 09:28:22 -0600, Dushan Mitrovich wrote:
> Adam Dershowitz wrote:
> > 
> > I know that I was excited to find a binary of the beta, and have been 
> > looking for an update for a while.  Despite being a Macports user for 
> > many applications, including Octave, I would prefer to just have a 
> > working binary.  
> > My guess is that there is a chicken-and-egg problem.  Much of the 
> > current community knows how to build Octave, so doesn't care about a 
> > binary.  Meanwhile, there are a bunch of people who would want to use 
> > it, but don't know anything about compiling or package managers, so 
> > they take a quick look, and give up.  So, they are not considered 
> > part of the "community".  

I want to say to this that you are absolutely part of the Octave
community if you want to be. Our community does not only include people
who know how to write or compile code or use complicated package
managers.

But I hope that you understand that being part of a community means you
get out of it what you put in. To be a user of a community-driven
project like Octave means that you might be willing to test features
that may not work fully, to provide useful feedback to developers, to
tolerate the occasional breakage, to submit detailed and actionable bug
reports, to help update documentation. If you're not willing to do any
of those things, then whatever you are lucky enough to get from the
community may not be worth much or may not work for you at all.

(Aside: I am a developer, and I think homebrew is way too complicated.)

> > I'm sure that having available binaries would greatly increase the 
> > user base.  So, personally I would definitely be happy to have an 
> > available binary, and I think that it would be great for Octave 
> > overall.  
> > Just my own two cents.
>  
> Adam has expressed my feelings about this exactly.  I've not had Octave 
> on our home iMac, running Mountain Lion X.8.5, for just the reasons he 
> presents.  Even with a future move to Yosemite, I'd much appreciate a 
> binary.  Another two cents worth.

I agree with both of you, a binary installer will absolutely increase
the user base, and hopefully some of those new users will choose to
become active participants in the community (by submitting useful bug
reports, actively testing features, maybe even contributing some new
functions).

Now on to the developers…

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 20:13:09 -0400, Ben Abbott wrote:
> On May 31, 2016, at 12:25 PM, Sebastian Schöps wrote:
> > 
> > As already metioned several times, there is dmg at
> > 
> > http://wiki.octave.org/Create_a_MacOS_X_App_Bundle_Using_Homebrew
> > 
> > First link. We (actually it's mainly Ben) are currently debugging it. So
> > please help us. Once we are confident that it's working well, I will try to
> > convince John to advertise it on the main Octave page.
> > 
> > Feedback here or at the dedicated bugtracker:
> > https://github.com/schoeps/octave_installer/issues
> > 
> > Sebastian
> 
> I’ve run the bundle on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) running
> Yosemite and a Mac mini (core 2 duo, 2010) running El Capitan. That
> sets a rather low bar for hardware requirements, but a rather high bar
> for Mac OS X.
> 
> We stil need to determine the minimum requirements for Mac OS X, or
> perhaps we have and I’m not aware of it? The first 64 bit version of
> Mac OS X was Leopard (10.5). The minimum requirement will certainly be
> 10.5 or something higher. Since Lion (10.7) it is possible to update
> Mac OS X with a few mouse clicks. So systems with 10.7 or higher can
> easily be upgraded to run the app.
> 
> Once the minimum requirements are clearly defined (we can be
> conservative) I think we’re ready for an official roll out.
> 
> If anyone is running 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, or 10.9, please help us
> out by trying the app and let us know if it works for you.
> 
> Sebastian, just to be sure, is the app linked to on the wiki up to
> date?

This reads to me like you are both suggesting that this homebrew-based
binary installer could become an official installer for any OS X user,
is that right?

If yes, then can someone please update the primary OS X wiki page to
make the binary downloader be immediately visible and primary on that
page? I think visitors to the page

  http://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_MacOS_X

should just see something that says "here is the binary" front and
center in a highlighted box or something. They shouldn't have to read
about the different packaging tools and click through to a different
page to get to it. Right now it's just way too hard to find.

This will unquestionably help you get more downloads, and maybe more
feedback and maybe get us closer to an official binary release.

Cheers,

-- 
mike