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GNU Octave 3.0 Released After 11 Years
Digana writes "GNU Octave is a free numerical computing environment highly compatible with the MATLAB language. After 11 years of development since version 2.0, stable version 3.0 released yesterday. This version is interesting because unlike other free or semi-free MATLAB competitors like Scilab, specific compatibility with MATLAB code is a design goal. This has manifested itself in goodies like better support for MATLAB's Handle Graphics, a syntax closer to MATLAB's own for many functions, and many functions from the sister project Octave-Forge ported to the core Octave project for an enriched functionality closer to the toolboxes provided by MATLAB. GUI development is underway, but still no JIT compiling, which is a show-stopper for Octave newbies coming from MATLAB with unvectorized code."
Why is 11 years significant? 2.0 and 3.0 are just version numbers.
It's been over 11 years since Linux 2.0, and Linux 3.0 is nowhere in sight, but I don't see anybody complaining about its version number.
OTOH, GNU Emacs is at version 22, and I don't see either its proponents or its detractors claiming this is a good or bad thing.
Or maybe I'm just amused because it's on Slashdot. I mean, releasing a new major version of some numerical analysis software must be really easy, right? It's not rocket science, like, say, using CSS for a webpage, huh? Huh? *nudge*
The bad news is that they are wasting their time using the Matlab syntax, while there is a much better alternative for doing exactly the same thing. Python is universal, if there's anything you can do with a computer, the simplest way to do it is with Python, so why do it the hard way?
One of the reasons I haven't moved my students completely to Scilab or Octave is an excellent implementation of 802.11 in Matlab. It uses a bunch of toolkits and blocksets. I'm not even thinking of translating it.
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/loadFile.do?objectId=3540&objectType=FILE
I wonder how many other such applications there are.
My school will not give students a copy of Matlab for any purpose, because of license restrictions. We can either use a school terminal (ever wonder what a crowded computer lab looks like?), or run it off a Solaris server (X11 forwarding, leaving Windows and most Apple users out of the loop) which has strict resource limits imposed (forget processing anything big). Of course, with this setup, it is completely impossible to hook up any specialized hardware to the system running Matlab, so to process data from the real world, we must first collect it on one computer, then copy it over to a computer with Matlab installed (which is rarely in the same room as the equipment in use), and no, you cannot process anything as it happens, and yes, our disk space on the Solaris server is limited to 100MB, so your data can't be too large (not that you get enough CPU cycles to process anything large).
Octave? Right on my system. On any system I want, actually. I miss a few features, and bit of Matlab compatibility (not nearly as bad as it sounds, I have yet to have it be an actual problem), and a GUI (which I am not at all concerned about -- I'll take a functional CLI over a dysfunctional GUI any day), but in the end, I get what I needed: Something that allows me to work with other people's Matlab code, without having to wait in line for a computer or worrying about a resource limit on a Unix server. If Mathworks stopped screwing around with license restrictions, that are even worse than Wolfram (the maker of Mathematica, which is also mangled in license restrictions), I would never have even looked into Octave.
Palm trees and 8
Python is about equally bad as far as syntax goes. Python behavior also presents difficult obstacles to optimization; the Matlab system apparantly does not (one can convert to C).
The LISP guy has a point, though that syntax is even uglier. (like being in a sensory deprivation tank)
If you really do want to crunch numbers, you don't screw around with any of the above. You use FORTRAN. Maybe that isn't cool, trendy, hot, exciting, whatever... but it works damn well. Assuming your idea of the C language doesn't include heavy use of the "restrict" keyword, FORTRAN optimizes even better than C. FORTRAN has a genuine international standard; it won't suddenly change because Guido gets a random urge. For number crunching, the world is full of FORTRAN code. Really, you can't do better.
Okay, I'll define it. The math man at our company only uses Matlab intermittently (the occasional R&D project) and for the past few years it was decided that we couldn't justify buying support or upgrades. This year he was asked to look into what it would cost to upgrade. He was told that we'd need to make up all the money that Matlab didn't get all those years first, before we could even be considered for an upgrade, and conveniently just purchasing a new copy would be even more expensive. Now this was in spite of the fact that they had provided no support or services in that period. Ended up being about fifteen grand for one seat. Let me tell you, that's a sense of entitlement with a vengeance, one that even the RIAA could appreciate. In other words, play our game and pay us our yearly juice money or we'll shove it up your ass.
I know Matlab is a complex product that took decades to develop, but demanding money for services not rendered, just because you know the customer has nowhere else to go, is usurious at best. I presume you've never had to deal with them in that vein because you've obviously bought into their system and it's worth it to you to keep paying them. I have no problem with that. But their attitude left a very bad taste in our corporate mouth, and given that our needs are simplistic compared to yours, we'll be evaluating what else is out there. Their behavior in this regard is not what I expect of a truly customer-oriented operation, but it is what you expect when a single company achieves a de-facto near monopoly.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I didn't say it was the price for one seat. It was the cost to pay for the software maintenance that we had chosen not to pay for the past few years. I wish people would read what I post instead of just the first line. And there was no negotiation involved: just a simple email request for current pricing. I saw the response from Mathworks. We were all kinda surprised at the amount.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Well I've been a matlab and octave user for 10 years and I think I used the matlab GUI once, but its so much slower than vim that I ditched it.
Octave needs a gui like python or bash does.
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Yes. Sure. Lets base judgment of an entire paradise on a single relatively small bit of software in that paradime.
Just like closed source, open source has some lemons too.
I mean after 5 years of development by the biggest software company in the world Vista shows that closed source isn't that great either.