octave-dev

[OctDev] Octave-forge Development

[Mark P. E. <ma...@sr...>]

I am trying to figure out how octave-forge development works.  For the main 
part of octave, John Eaton set's the direction, adds patches etc., but how 
about for octave-forge?  When I look at the "Octave-forge developer's guide" 
at http://octave.sourceforge.net/ it has instructions for adding modules to 
octave-forge. Does each module's author maintain the module?  I probably 
don't have the ability or the time to add major modules to octave-forge, but 
I can do some bug-fixes, documentation, etc.  How would I go about doing 
that? Just having a few comments on what works and what doesn't seems like it 
would be helpful.  Should this go on http://wiki.octave.org/?   Maybe we 
could avoid some of the frustration expressed recently by Tom in his post to 
he...@oc....

> From: "Tom G. Smith (Smitty)" <sm...@kc...>
> To: he...@oc...

> I've gotten octave-forge to compile and install on octave 2.1.57,
> but I'm not at all sure I have anything more than compiled garbage.
> I had to make numerous source code changes, some of which were
> correcting simple typographical errors, so I know this code has never
> been successfully compiled and tested.

Some things in octave-forge work very well. It is a shame for the whole system 
to be judged by the parts that don't work.

                       -Mark

Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge Development

[Quentin S. <qsp...@ie...>]

Mark P. Esplin wrote:

>I am trying to figure out how octave-forge development works.  For the main 
>part of octave, John Eaton set's the direction, adds patches etc., but how 
>about for octave-forge?  When I look at the "Octave-forge developer's guide" 
>at http://octave.sourceforge.net/ it has instructions for adding modules to 
>octave-forge. Does each module's author maintain the module?  I probably 
>don't have the ability or the time to add major modules to octave-forge, but 
>I can do some bug-fixes, documentation, etc.  How would I go about doing 
>that? Just having a few comments on what works and what doesn't seems like it 
>would be helpful.  Should this go on http://wiki.octave.org/?   Maybe we 
>could avoid some of the frustration expressed recently by Tom in his post to 
>he...@oc....
>  
>
This and another recent post by Dirk to the octave list about splitting 
octave-forge because of dependencies has got me thinking. Octave-forge 
has become quite large and includes some very stable as well as some 
bleeding-edge code. I seem to recall that John has expressed a desire to 
avoid adding too much extra stuff to the core octave distribution, while 
at the same time some of the octave-forge functions have become a 
necessity for many people (including myself). Many of them roughly 
approximate the MATLAB "toolboxes", and some of them comprise easy 
solutions to questions that seem to come up on help-octave at least 
weekly (how do I save a figure, etc...), so the evidence would suggest 
that it's not advertized well enough. I'm not sure about the solution to 
that problem, but I would like to suggest we split octave-forge into 
some smaller packages. Here's a suggestion:

"octave-extras" or "octave-toolboxes": a well-tested core of 
octave-forge with minimal external dependencies

"octave-geom" and "octave-symbolic": separate packages that depend on 
external packages (like GiNaC and qhull)

"octave-forge": bleeding edge stuff

I welcome any thoughts on this.

-Quentin

Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge Development

[Teemu I. <tpi...@pc...>]

On 11/06/04 11:14, Mark P. Esplin wrote:
> I am trying to figure out how octave-forge development works.  For the main 
> part of octave, John Eaton set's the direction, adds patches etc., but how 
> about for octave-forge?  When I look at the "Octave-forge developer's guide" 
> at http://octave.sourceforge.net/ it has instructions for adding modules to 
> octave-forge. Does each module's author maintain the module?  I probably 
> don't have the ability or the time to add major modules to octave-forge, but 
> I can do some bug-fixes, documentation, etc.  How would I go about doing 
> that? 

Octave-forge development is not very coordinated. Usually each author
maintains his/her own modules, but others are free to fix bugs, especially
when they're related to the build system or brokennes caused by the core
Octave changes. I think CVS commit access is given to anyone who wants it,
you just have to ask. The other option is to mail patches to the maintainer
of the module in question.

> > From: "Tom G. Smith (Smitty)" <sm...@kc...>
> > To: he...@oc...
> 
> > I've gotten octave-forge to compile and install on octave 2.1.57,
> > but I'm not at all sure I have anything more than compiled garbage.
> > I had to make numerous source code changes, some of which were
> > correcting simple typographical errors, so I know this code has never
> > been successfully compiled and tested.
> 
> Some things in octave-forge work very well. It is a shame for the whole system 
> to be judged by the parts that don't work.

Octave and octave-forge are not very coordinated with each other either. The
core Octave is that much of a moving target, that the versions usually need
to be in sync. The version requirements can usually be found on the release
notes. I've just today compiled CVS checkout of octave-forge on a
CVS version of Octave and the sequence 
./autogen.sh; ./configure; make; make install; 
worked with no problems what so ever.

On the other hand, if one wants some get some work done instead of compiling
the bleeding edge stuff from CVS, I recommend the excellent Debian packages
of Octave and octave-forge.

Teemu

Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge Development

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

Please update the text of the new developer guide as you feel is
appropriate.  It is in admin/template.ndev and is rebuilt using
admin/get_contents.

Post your patches to oct...@li...  and somebody
with write privileges will update the CVS tree.  Regular
contributors can get write privileges by asking.

Paul Kienzle
pki...@us...

On Jun 11, 2004, at 11:14 AM, Mark P. Esplin wrote:

> I am trying to figure out how octave-forge development works.  For the 
> main
> part of octave, John Eaton set's the direction, adds patches etc., but 
> how
> about for octave-forge?  When I look at the "Octave-forge developer's 
> guide"
> at http://octave.sourceforge.net/ it has instructions for adding 
> modules to
> octave-forge. Does each module's author maintain the module?  I 
> probably
> don't have the ability or the time to add major modules to 
> octave-forge, but
> I can do some bug-fixes, documentation, etc.  How would I go about 
> doing
> that? Just having a few comments on what works and what doesn't seems 
> like it
> would be helpful.  Should this go on http://wiki.octave.org/?   Maybe 
> we
> could avoid some of the frustration expressed recently by Tom in his 
> post to
> he...@oc....
>
>> From: "Tom G. Smith (Smitty)" <sm...@kc...>
>> To: he...@oc...
>
>> I've gotten octave-forge to compile and install on octave 2.1.57,
>> but I'm not at all sure I have anything more than compiled garbage.
>> I had to make numerous source code changes, some of which were
>> correcting simple typographical errors, so I know this code has never
>> been successfully compiled and tested.
>
> Some things in octave-forge work very well. It is a shame for the 
> whole system
> to be judged by the parts that don't work.
>
>                        -Mark
>
>
>
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