Re: Implementation of importdata belonging to Octave Core or Octave-Forge?

[Ben Abbott]

On Oct 20, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Juan Pablo Carbajal wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> But (given the average number of active maintainers over a longer period)
>> there's also something to say for keeping core Octave compact and
>> well-maintained, and leaving specialized functions in OF.
> 
> Well, if you try to draw a line between "general enough" and
> specialized you will see how fuzzy the boundary is.
> I think is good to have OF with field specific routines, definitely.
> But there is some fuctionality there (like inputParser, yeah I know we
> wait for classdef) that could eventually be moved into core.
> 
> Anyway, Lets see what Jordi says to your questions since he is the one
> who added importdata to core.

I think a good start would be to define (redefine?) the purpose of the core, 
Octave Forge, and Agora.  This has come up before.  Perhaps this should be 
formalized to avoid repeats in the future?

In any event, my impression may be wrong, but I had thought Octave's core would 
include functions in Matlab's core and others.  Octave Forge would include the 
package equivalents to Matlab's Toolboxes (other packages as well).  Agora 
would be equivalent to Matlab's File Exchange (no formal rules ?).

Personally, I'd like to see the package equivalents to Matlab's Toolboxes meet 
the same compatibility requirements as Octave's core.   Other than that, I'm 
pleased with the current arrangement (as I understand it).

Ben

p.s. I've cc'd Jordi