Re: [OctDev] Re: Nonlinear optimization tutorial

[Paul K. <pki...@ja...>]

Thanks!

I would say stick with the name minimize.  If you also happen to give your
minimization some constraint options, then minimize can choose a constraint
algorithm.  If that is too awkward, then we can find a new name for the
constrained version, such as mincon.

Any opinions as to whether matlab's minimization function interface is
acceptable?  My preference is to not introduce new interfaces unless they
are clearly better.

We need to settle on a document format, or maybe a small number of
formats.  That way it will be easier to work together on documentation.
Standard layout of documentation in the directory would also be helpful so
that the build/install docs can work like install m-files.

Something tex based certainly seems to be in order since it makes the math
easier to typeset.  I'm partial to latex myself.

I don't know what to make of lyx.  While ascii based, I'm guessing that lyx
would not be very happy if you make modifications directly on the file with
a plain text editor, so everyone would have to use lyx.

Anyone have experience with MathML?  Is there common browser support?
Latex2html can be really ugly.  Is MathML something you could edit directly
(like html), or is it only really usuable with a sophisticated editor.

That Octave uses texinfo is a good argument for using texinfo ourselves.
What I've seen from octave function headers, though, tells me I won't like
it much.  I still am avoiding going through and fixing up all our function
headers to use texinfo format ;-)

Other suggestions?

- Paul

On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 08:58:01AM +0000, Etienne Grossmann wrote:
>   Hello,
> 
> this is just to send a slightly polished version of the previous
> tutorial. Amongst other things, I replaced the front-end's name by
> u_minimize(), so that it may be later possible to add other front ends
> such as 
> 
>   u_minimize      :     unconstrained minimization
>   c_minimize      :     constrained minimization
>   l_minimize      :     linear programming
>   leasqr          :     least squares
>   ... your favorite optimization problem here ...
> 
> If these front-ends take care to call similar options by the same
> name, it may be possible to then write a front-end for them all, why
> not?
> 
>   Any opinions, suggestions? Shall I upload u_minimize (perhaps w/
> another name) and the tutorial?
> 
>   Cheers,
> 
>   Etienne
> 
> -- 
> Etienne Grossmann ------ http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~etienne