Re: Octave on Reddit

[GFotios]

On Sep 29, 2010, at 3:34 PM, Jaroslav Hajek wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:31 PM, GFotios <address@hidden>  
> wrote:
> > On Sep 29, 2010, at 3:11 PM, Michael Creel wrote:
> >
> > > 2010/9/29 Jaroslav Hajek <address@hidden>:
> > > > 2010/9/29 Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden>:
> > > > > It seems a popular news site has picked up Octave's homepage:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >  
> > > > > http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/dk61b/free_alternative_to_matlab_check_octave_out/
> > > > >
> > > > > A few months ago, something similar happened:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >  
> > > > > http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/c3pqb/ever_wished_you_had_a_matlab_license_octave_is/
> > > > >
> > > > > It's really sad to read the comments, though. Many suggest to use
> > > > > other things instead of Octave, and many others say that Octave is
> > > > > irreparably inferior as compared to Matlab.
> > > >
> > > > I've only read the first one, but it's not that bad. NumPy/SciPy  
> > > > are
> > > > becoming popular, but I suspect those people saying that it has an
> > > > "almost identical syntax" to Matlab have never really used Matlab.
> > > > Anyone who used both knows that the syntax is *way* different  
> > > > compared
> > > > to Octave; and not just the syntax, but the semantics as well  
> > > > (COW vs.
> > > > implicit pointers).
> > > >
> > > > Yes, plotting is slow and not as nice as Matlab's, but it's about  
> > > > the
> > > > best that can be squeezed out of Gnuplot. Regarding computing
> > > > functions, someone only mentioned contourc, but I wonder exactly  
> > > > how
> > > > much slower it is. Etc.
> > > >
> > > > As a summary, there's nothing new, we know all that. It seems to  
> > > > be a
> > > > rule on the web that negative comments are always in broad supply,
> > > > regarding almost anything even if many people like it. In Czech, we
> > > > have a proverb saying that "An empty pot thuds the loudest." ;-)
> > > >
> > > > regards
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > RNDr. Jaroslav Hajek, PhD
> > > > computing expert & GNU Octave developer
> > > > Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLU)
> > > > Prague, Czech Republic
> > > > url: www.highegg.matfyz.cz
> > >
> > > At my university we have a site licence for Matlab, and last year I
> > > got curious and decided to try it out to see if I was missing
> > > anything. Suffice it to say that my experiment lasted for a week or
> > > two, and after that I happily went back to Octave. Octave with MPI  
> > > and
> > > a little C++ for bottleneck computations is a winning combination,  
> > > in
> > > my opinion. I don't think that popularity is necessarily a good
> > > measure of quality - there are a lot of Windows users out there,  
> > > after
> > > all.
> > > Michael
> >
> > I agree with the combo Octave + C++ + MPI. There is really nothing  
> > new to
> > Reddit, people that like to argue about something never tried (i  
> > guess),
> > Jaroslav is correct. I implemented and measured the time for the  
> > assembly of
> > FEM matrices in Python, Python+f2py and Matlab (once upon a time  
> > when i was
> > choosing my dev environment), and the results were disappointing for
> > Python!!! Now that i use Octave a lot i ll show sth similar for a  
> > shape
> > optimization problem (later in 2010 for those interested).  
> > Regarding Octave,
> > i would like the interpreter to be faster (say like Scilab's; the  
> > same
> > simple loop takes 3\times or so longer in Octave unfortunately)  
> > (and when i
> > m able to do sth about it, i ll).
>
> What simple loop? Can you show it?
>
>
>
> --
> RNDr. Jaroslav Hajek, PhD
> computing expert & GNU Octave developer
> Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLU)
> Prague, Czech Republic
> url: www.highegg.matfyz.cz

I do not recall the example but i ll try to reproduce it later today.  
As far as i remember it was sth very simple (almost stupid) and Scilab  
was \approx 2.3 and Octave \approx 9.2. Both on mac os X snow leopard,  
both binary versions (Octave 3.2.3, Scilab 5.3 beta 3).

/Fotios