Re: Emacs mode for Matlab vs Emacs mode for Octave

[Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso]

On 07/05/07, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> if people think that the Matlab mode is better, then maybe those who
> are interested should try to get that accepted as part of Emacs
> (though you might have some trouble since adding "matlab mode" to
> Emacs would probably be seen by RMS as "promoting non-free
> software".

This can be helped. Since the Matlab mode is GPLed, we can just
relabel it make it the new Octave mode. s/Matlab/Octave/g, if you know
what I mean. Or take most of its code and add it to the existing
Octave mode. RMS would agree to something like that, right? I'll ask him.

> Also, in response to Jordi's question:
>
>   My questions are, is the relative austerity of
>   the Octave mode as compared to Matlab mode intentional?
>
> No, Kurt and I didn't intentionally try to write lame software.

Heh. What I meant to ask is if Octave mode's austerity was intentional
because the features of Matlab mode were deemed to be bloat. On second
though, maybe the concept of "bloat" doesn't exist in Emacs. ;-)

The things missing from Matlab mode as compared to Octave mode are
quite minimal (the Octave comment charcters, for instance) and it
should be a quick fix to merge the two together. I'm thinking of
Octave mode features such as # indents to the right, ## at the current
level of indentation and ### at the beginning. I keep meaning to learn
elisp, and perhaps this is finally a very good reason to do so.

- Jordi G. H.