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Octave and Gnuplot Coming To Android
New submitter MathIsTasty writes "Recently, it was announced on the Octave-maintainers list that a Kickstarter campaign has been launched to bring Matlab style numerical computations and graphing to Android via a 'more than' port of Octave and gnuplot. While I doubt it will be as successful as some recent games on Kickstarter, is this a reasonable way to fund free software development? Now, we just have to worry about people working on simulating solar irradiation while driving. Here is a good blog post about the project."
So my Droid will look like Texas Instruments calculator? Awesome
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I have been a long time Matlab, but have always been frustrated with licensing issues etc.
So I have tried replacing Matlab with Octave and SciLab a couple of times, but they both feels more cumbersome to use.
About a year ago, I tried Python with the modules Numpy and SciPy, and it just completely smokes the competitors. It is much more enjoyable to work with, so people should really give it a go, it if hard work to get used to something new, but with Python, you will not be disappointed. You can get some nice inspiration of what is possible in the 3rd party documentation SciPy-Lectures:
http://scipy-lectures.github.com/
To get your kickstarter project slashvertised? Is this ethical?
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
There is already Addi: http://code.google.com/p/addi/
Now is the happy time for Kickstarter. Good people are getting money for good projects. However, I can see about a million ways that the system can be abused. It hasn't started to happen in a serious way...yet. It certainly will as Kickstarter becomes more famous and the bad guys catch wind of what's going on. Enjoy it while it lasts, everyone.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
R (www.r-project.org) is my elixir
I'm teaching hi school math (in Denmark), and I hate forcing (or trying to force) my students into buying TI calculators at monopoly prices.
What's the best calc for android that would do the following:
* Enter mathematical expressions (showing the full expression) and evaluating them
* Making scatterplots
* Plotting graphs, and fitting functions to data points (linear, power law and exponential required)
* Preferably plotting histograms, sum curves etc.
Best if the program is free, without too many frills, and above all, extremely user friendly.
Going for kickstarter is one thing
Asking for donation of at least $50,000.00 just to port free software onto Android is another
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I've had gnuplot on my N900 for ages.
Now, we just have to worry about people working on simulating solar irradiation while driving.
Been there. I have an N900 that runs R, numpy, matplotlib. Handy for computing when I can't sit on the bus or subway.
Though I very rarely use Octave, Gnuplot is one of my favorite tools, I like it a lot, it is very powerful. This a very good decision to port them on Android, because associated with ADK it can enable easy custom applications for data acquisition and analysis on the field.
(I guess that only makes sense when spoken with a British, rather than American, accent)
I just backed this project after reading this article. It would help if Slashdot editors can regularly promote crowdfunded Open-source projects as a feature, or type of article.
Personally, I'd love to hear about other open-source projects when they make it to Kickstarter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Gnuplot saved my ass back in the mid 90's when I was a lab assistant. I had a remote fast machine that ran my code for analysis, but no real way to quickly get the hundreds of time lapsed graphs. Then I found Gnuplot and presto. The job was done. A plotter(real old fashioned kind) hooked to my slow Mac and the world was a good place. Certainly any smart phone is faster than a 1990 Mac, and I can imagine beng in the field needing to do a quick plot.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Awww geeze. Ok, I've got a problem. I saw the headline and all I read was Octavia's Plot. Is there an AA equivalent for this?
As a mathematician and hobbyist iOS developer, it really sucks that so much great mathematics software is GPLed. You can't port Octave, for example, to the iPad as its license is incompatible with Apples terms. I'd love to see this kind of stuff on my iPad. I'd even write it myself! But nope... A few great non-GPLed mathematics packages that have made their way into the iOS ecosystem. There's a Reduce implementation, for example, that looks really nice.
And while I'm rambling (sorry), LaTeX on mobile is just in shambles. I mean, it's in shambles on the desktop, too, but it's nearly impossible to do on mobile. It needs a rewrite. Period. But the mobile dev community has done a really great job getting as far as possible with what we have with LaTeX.
I have a day job and a long meeting this morning, but I will be a good sport and try to answer any questions, concerns, etc later. I have a good sense of humor, so I can handle jokes and flames too. So, fire away! Corbin Champion
Wait, what? I had gnuplot and octave on my N900. Two years ago. Gees, bit slow there android.
Bitter and proud of it.
Thank you for doing this.
Are there any plans to enable access to the sensors on the phone through Ocatave scripts run on the phone?
Yes there are. That is not the initial thrust of this campaign, but yet, I have thought of it and will work on it (hopefully with others) once promised functionality is provided.
Thanks! I donated.