From owner-help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Tue Feb  4 14:32:26 1997
Subject: Re: WHICH FREEWARE MATLAB CLONE IS BETTER? Scilab or Octave 
From: Jim Van Zandt <jrv at mbunix dot mitre dot org>
To: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 15:32:23 -0500

In message <199702041957 dot LAA16349 at alumnae dot caltech dot edu>, lbliao writes:
>>>
>>>There are at least two free Matlab clones available for Linux.
>>>Perhaps they would meet your needs.
>>>
>>>SciLab at:
>>>http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/
>>>
>>>and Octave at:
>>>http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave/
>>>
>>>  Allen Ingling

>>Among the two freeware matlab clones that you mention, which is the
>>better one?...
>>How similar is the syntax of these clones to the original matlab?

Scilab has some symbolic capabilities the others lack.  I believe a
polynomial is one of its primitive data types.  I don't think it is
similar enough to matlab to justify the label "clone".

The Octave syntax is closer to matlab.  Octave uses well known
numerical codes (lapack, for example).  I don't know about Scilab.

                           - Jim Van Zandt