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From: | Michael Creel |
Subject: | Re: Octave in Universities |
Date: | Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:28:41 +0000 |
User-agent: | Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051013) |
Steve C. Thompson wrote:
[soap box on] At one time, I used Matlab's GUI; and, yeah, it had some features that were useful. I now use X windows with multiple virtual desktops, Vim, terminal emulators (Konsole), and so forth. In my view, the features gained with this later approach largely outweigh the features lost by ditching Matlab's GUI. So my message to anyone who is hung up on Matlab's GUI is that there is a much bigger world of great tools available. Witha little work, the return on investment is significant.Step 1: learn how to use *vi* or Emacs Step 2: learn how to use X windows, virtual desktops Step 3: use GNU Octave Of course, these steps are done in parallel and the enjoyable process is continuous, never ending! [soap box off]
Looking at it from a newbie's point of view, you're asking them to do the most painful, steepest learning curve, less obviously productive stuff first, and the intrinsically interesting not-too difficult stuff last. Also, at a university, the potential users are mostly undergrad students who were born after the DOS prompt was starting to fade into the past. Making Octave work with a GUI, and making it really easy to plot and print graphs will help a lot in getting used. I hate to say it, but making it work with windows will have a bigger effect that any other factor. I'm constantly amazed with the trouble windows users will put up with, rather than invest in a day learning how to use KDE.
M. ------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------
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