Re: version differences

[Richard KIrk]

If you share your work with others, you will want to keep reasonably up to
date..
- your programs should work on other's machines
- if you have problems, the forum comments will be more relevant
- it is easier if you update in small jumps than big ones.

If you are lucky to work in an area where the code is stable, then there is
little incentive to change what is not broken. I use 'octave' for image
processing and I have noticed the convolution has got faster for some cases,
and the argument parsing has become easier. However, I suspect you are
plotting your results, and I feel the plotting has got more consistent (I
work on LInux at work, and Mac at home, so I get to compare the two). If you
are not upgrading because your plots don't work on the new versions, then
you will probably have to get around to it someday because you are probably
using some old bug or feature that has gone. 

Octave version numbers have the format A.B.C.

A: Major number

There is a major change in look and feel when the major number is changed.
Backwards compatibility is generally honoured, but this is a time to chuck
out support for very old features. Features are removed and new features are
added. This does not happen often. You may well want to run both versions
for a while, so you can check that everything works as it should.

B: Minor number

The even numbers are (or should be) stable releases. The odd numbers may be
used for more radical development, and become the next even release when
people are happy that the changes are solid. This is a common thing for
projects to do, but I don't actually know whether this is octave policy.
When this number changes, the releases will probably have been checked on
most popular operating systems. I would update to the next even number. If
you don't fancy being a guinea-pig, you might hold off updating until the
first revision or so has clocked up, and some other poor fool has had all
the grief for you.

C: Update 

Unless you are waiting for some particular bug fix, there is little point
tracking the last version number. This should improve the code without
affecting backwards compatibility, though some things slip through the net,
and others do not work on all machines and operating systems.. A rare
instance is oct-files compiled on 3.4.0 had to be recompiled on 3.4.1.

Hope this helps.
Richard Kirk


 





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