Re: What is the point of octave? (And its presumed buddy, MatLab)

Jerzy Karczmarczuk wrote:

<snip>

> Julian Stoev gave you an answer:
>
> > Instead of solving these problems in compiled language (like Fortran),
> > Matlab is solving this in the interpreted language, thus gaining
> > programming speed and convenience.

I think it is inconvenient to have a program stop in the middle, due to
a programming error, rather than at compile time. This happens to me
more often in an interpreted language than in Fortran 95 using MODULEs
for interface checking and compiling in "strict" mode.

<snip>

>
> So, yes, it is MAINLY for numerical computations. Still, I have a few
> additional comments. Sorry, it will be long!
>
> 0. Matlab, Scilab, Octave, Numerical/Scientific Python, Yorick, Rlab,
> etc. are based on *vectorial* approach to programming. Instead of
> writing loops, you define and process arrays as compact entities
> with mathematical properties, say
> x = (0:1000)*0.001*Pi; y=sin(x); plot(x,y,x,x.*y);
> THIS is the main point, not the fact that those packages are inter-
> preters. So, the typical usage concerns scientific problems where
> there is plenty of regular accesses to structured data. Signal
> processing, computer graphics, etc.
> [Actually, I do not understand people who install programs before
> knowing what they really want from them, but this is another story.]

Fortran 90 and later versions of the language are also
"vectorial".

.

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