Starting using octave

[acoohdb]

This is just an observation, for what it's worth.

I did download octave, the 'complete' windows version, and after some
setting up (particularly setting the appropriate font) it seemed to be
functioning.

However I had some problem deciphering the philosopy of it's
functioning, and eventually gave up. Probably it would have been fine
had I been given a short lecture on it, but the help didn't seem to be
that helpful.

There are a number of 'styles' for mathematical/numerical programs that
I am familiar with. We have 'spreadsheet', and a variety of program
styles. I am familiar with pascal (turbo), basic and assembler. So, I'm
pretty inexperienced, in probably a narrow range, but not as green as
(say) a student. It's *very* unusual for me not to get an unknown
program up and running and in use relatively quickly with intelligent
use of what help is available.

I would expect all modern programs to have a full-blown editor included,
and in the default (obviously capable of replacement for one of your own
choice if preferred). I would expect to start in the editor, and be able
to put in a sequence of instructions and run them. I would expect to be
able to save these instructions and edit them in full-screen, that is be
able to 'go up' and modify any bits of code that turned out to be wrong.

As far as I could see the basic editor in octave seemed to be a line
editor, and there didn't seem to be any way to 'list' the actual
sequence of commands that octave was actually interpreting.

After quite a bit of looking at various helps, and trying the sort of
thing that works on other bits of software, I gave up and after a month
deleted it.

Since it is clear to me from reading this listserver that octave is a
powerful piece of software and clearly highly regarded by many, I think
this is a pity. I post this for comment, if anyone is interested.

-- 
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
DEMON address no longer in use. 



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