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Re: GNU Octave interface


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>
  • To: address@hidden
  • Subject: Re: GNU Octave interface
  • Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 12:40:21 +0200 (MET DST)

> But we need, at
> least, a reasonable vertical alignment in columns of matrices. I can
> generate a reasonable LaTeX for this, but this will be a very advanced
> LaTeX, and I'm not sure if TeXmacs will accept it. What is the simplest
> way to align numbers at the decimal point in a column, which TeXmacs can
> understand?

The way to do this is to align the columns at the vertical base line and
to let numbers be displayed in such a way that the vertical base line is
at the decimal point. We might want to add some markup for this,
but it should not be very difficult. As soon as someone has a graphical
interface with Octave working, then I will take a look.

> I can't really understand why anybody would like to run Octave from
> TeXmacs (well, I can use this occasion to learn something about huge C++
> sources :-).

The point is that you sometimes want a light interface to exchange data
between *several* systems. TeXmacs will allow you to copy and paste
the matrices to *any* other computer algebra system with a connection
to TeXmacs. Later on, we also plan to implement a typesafe communication
protocol between several systems (some kind of Openmath-light).
Finally, we might add Octave menus and keyboard shortcuts inside TeXmacs,
and create a highly integrated working environment.

> Octave writes only numbers, matrices of numbers, and
> polynomials. Matrices are without any surraunding brackets, just nicely
> aligned tables of numbers. Any graphical-mode output can only make them
> *less* readable, because digits have fixed width in usual fonts anyway
> (no difference from the text mode here), and alignment can be easily
> spoiled,

Notice that digits also have a fixed width in TeXmacs (most Metafont fonts
are designed in that way).

> if we don't emulate all (highly sophisticated) Octave output-formatting
> routines. Polynomials look nicer in the graphical mode, but they are
> (relatively) rarely used.

And who knows what will be added later on?


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