Re: Octave 3.6.1 mingw for windows - updated

[PhilipNienhuis]

Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso-2 wrote
> 
> On 5 April 2012 10:59, Lukas Reichlin <lukas.reichlin.lists@> wrote:
>>
>> On 05.04.2012, at 15:34, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
>>
>>> 2012/4/5 Sébastien Villemot <sebastien.villemot@>:
>>>> During the installation it is possible to only install Octave without
>>>> the Octave-Forge packages (by unclicking a checkbox).
>>>
>>> People are basically illiterate. They don't care what they're
>>> installing or why. They just want "everything". They need a little
>>> guidance here.
>>>
>>>> From my point of view, if the user installs the Octave-Forge packages,
>>>> he expects them to be autoloaded. At least this is the policy that we
>>>> adopted in the Debian Octave Group.
>>>
>>> Debian users have a habit to pay attention to what they're installing
>>> and will complain loudly if packages they don't recognise are being
>>> installed. Windows users have the habit of
>>> "next->next->I-agree->next->next->done".
>>>
>>> - Jordi G. H.
>>
>> Jordi, I don't quite get it. Why do you want users to type "pkg
>> load" every time if they chose to install the packages?
> 
> No, they can add it to their .octaverc. I think it's important for
> another reason: educate user that some functions are in packages and
> some are in core. And also, to educate users that there is such a
> thing as an .octaverc, in which they can add their customisations.
> 

An issue is that the .octaverc mechanism doesn't work so well in Windows.

On Windows there's no such thing as a ~ dir where you can put hidden setup /
init / customization files, let alone that Octave would know where to pick
them up by default.
(Or actually there is, it's called Application Data, Octave could access it
using something like [getenv("USERPROFILE" filesep "Application Data"] but
to link that to Octave isn't quite straightforward, let alone have users
finding it.) 

So, users need to browse into
<Octave_install_dir>/share/octave/<version>/m/startup to find octaverc.
My guess is that the average Windows user might even have trouble finding
the <Octave_install_dir> in the first place.

Thinking about it, it might be useful (at least on Windows) to store a
selection of persistent user customization settings in .octaverc using some
dedicated Octave commands rather than having users manually edit (and maybe
fubar) .octaverc in the share/ hierarchy.
Again on Windows, that (part of) octaverc to store such settings could live
in Application Data. But making such a mechanism work would require quite a
bit of fiddling.
On *nix this might be stored in a ~/.octave dir.



> If Windows had a nicer packaging infrastructure, it would be nice if
> you could say "pkg install package" and the package would install
> forever. Sadly, it doesn't, and "pkg install" is essentially useless
> in Windows, 
> 

I'm a bit confused. From where did you get this idea?

"pkg install package" perfectly works in Windows, at least the MinGW version
(the MSVC version has no compiler).
"pkg install -auto package" works even better.

Or do you refer to apt-get, rpm and the like?



> so I think "pkg load" (and perhaps patching pkg load to
> add that command to .octaverc?) is the next best thing.
> 
>> And you don't have to load matlab toolboxes either.
> 
> No, but you have to buy them. It's not unusual for people to write
> Matlab scripts without using certain functions from some toolbox
> because they want to make sure their users can use them regardless of
> which Matlab toolboxes they may have installed.
> 
> I think in this case, trying to make things too convenient for users
> doesn't expose them to the intricacies of the underlying problems, so
> they end up with other problems, such as for example, reporting OF
> problems to the wrong place, or being unaware of the relative quality
> and standards of core Octave and its packages.
> 
> - Jordi G. H.
> 

I'd rather think that convenience should NOT be avoided, not even for the
sake of "exposing them to intricacies .... etc". We should rather focus on
solving those intricacies.

One reason I find it hard to convince my colleagues to try alternatives for
ML is that ML did exactly that - focus on making things convenient for users
so they can concentrate on using rather than managing software.
Sorry to say so, but this is almost literally what I hear those colleagues
say.

Philip

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