Re: Opinions on Matlab compatibility, Octave development

[John Swensen]

On Jun 2, 2010, at 10:43 AM, Judd Storrs wrote:

> 
> That's not to say that IDL doesn't have problems and annoyances--it
> has probably more than it's fair share. At this point I prefer to use
> octave over Matlab and IDL because octave sucks way less than either
> Matlab or IDL.
> 

I wouldn't wish IDL on my worst enemies.  At my previous job, I had to use IDL 
as it is the indoctrinated language of all optics engineers and physicists.  
Perhaps I have forgotten some of the niceties of IDL in the last 3 years, but 
it must not have been a very large list as they were easy to forget.  Sometimes 
I profane the mex interface, but you should try interfacing a piece of hardware 
with IDL.  Not a pleasant experience.  If I had my druthers, I would implement 
all extensions to Octave/Matlab with the Octave C++ OCT API (despite its 
gradual changes).

John Swensen