Re: Adding functions to octave base?

[Søren Hauberg]

tir, 03 08 2010 kl. 08:35 +0200, skrev c.:
> So, although the OF can definetily use a lot of improvement, I beleive  
> the decoupling between the two projects is a good thing.

Personally, I agree that the decoupling of the two projects is a good
thing from a development point of view. Octave core needs fairly high
standards, which is a good thing. However, it can scare of new
contributors, so it's great to have a place like OF where
less-than-perfect code is welcome.

However, I think that more boring stuff like web sites should be shared.
I have spent more time than I've really enjoyed on the OF website and I
think the result is actually good (I use the function reference quite
often). I do think it is a shame that if you want to read the
documentation for Octave, then it is currently better to go to
octave.sf.net rather than octave.org. Now, we could just use the same
code to generate pages for octave.org, but that'll take time and it's a
boring job. So, I'd like to see octave.org and octave.sf.net merge into
one web site, but I don't see any point in trying to merge the actual
code developed by the two projects.

I also think we need to be better at communicating the difference
between the two projects. Two simple examples of communication problems
is
      * At OF we distribute a Windows binary of Octave that includes a
        bunch of packages. How is a user ever to figure out which
        functions comes from packages and which are part of core Octave?
        Basically, the user needs to look at the path of the function to
        answer that question; it is not surprising people find that
        hard. One solution would be to not distribute packages with the
        Windows binary (users would most likely be annoyed by this,
        though). Another solution would be to change 'help' such that it
        prints "This function is part of GNU Octave" in the beginning
        when the function is from Octave core, and "This function is
        part of the 'XXX' package" when the function is from a package.
      * If I install e.g. the 'image' package and type 'help bwmorph' (a
        function form said package) the following is printed:

                Additional help for built-in functions and operators is
                available in the on-line version of the manual.  Use the
                command
                `doc <topic>' to search the manual index.
                
                Help and information about Octave is also available on
                the WWW
                at http://www.octave.org and via the address@hidden
                mailing list.
        
        While that information technically is correct it does give the
        user the impression (s)he should ask questions about this
        function on address@hidden Perhaps we should only print this
        additional piece of text for functions that are actually part of
        Octave core?

Well, that was just some confused thoughts from my side,
Soren