[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Lack of matrix slicing documentation
From: |
kim |
Subject: |
Lack of matrix slicing documentation |
Date: |
Thu, 23 Sep 2004 06:12:10 -0500 |
The documentation very much need an easy accessible explanation of how
to work on parts of matrixes.
Here is my short story of how I almost did not start to use Octave,
and why.
I chose Octave because I thought it would have easy ways of accessing
parts of matrixes. Found nothing in the documentation, and did the
project with C instead.
New project, with need of eigenvectors. Did most of it in C, exported
matrices to Octave, and used a lot of "for" loops to move elements.
Then avoided Octave for a long time. Forgot the lack of sub-matrix
operators, returned to Octave, and again found nothing about it in the
documentation, and did it in C again.
Took a peek at Matlab, and found that it could do sub-matrix operations, like:
A(1:N-1,:) = A(2:N,:);
Tried that on Octave as an experiment, and it worked!
Had I seen that in the manual, I would have used Octave from the
start, and I guess this apply to other people than me as well.
So, to make Octave more popular and more widely used, I suggest
putting this in the manual, in the Matrix intruduction section.
Kim0, M.Sc. Physics.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.
Octave's home on the web: http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects: http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information: http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
- Lack of matrix slicing documentation,
kim <=