From maintainers-request at octave dot org Wed Oct  6 15:44:47 2004
Subject: Re: Embedding Octave
From: "Ian Reinhart Geiser" <geiseri at yahoo dot com>
To: maintainers at octave dot org
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 16:44:09 -0400 (EDT)


Quentin Spencer said:
> I've used KDevelop to work with octave before, and it is a pretty nice
> environment. It sounds like what you're proposing would allow KDevelop
> to roughly approximate functionality of the IDE that has been included
> in recent releases of MATLAB (IMHO it would be better because the MATLAB
> IDE is written in Java).
>
Ironicly I have not used Matlab since 1998 (when i found octave could do
my DSP class homework under linux) so I am not sure what their IDE looks
like.

> In the past when I have used KDevelop, I run octave in the embedded
> terminal. How does this differ from what you are proposing in quetion 1?
> -Quentin

I want to integrate the console a bit more so that I can do things like
provide the functions and variables in the class browser organized by each
file.  This will help with managing projects with multiple files.

Also by interacting directly with octave vs interacting with a child
process via stdio, I can provide bindings to KDevelop, so octave projects
can communicate with KDevelop.  The main reason I want this is so that I
can interact directly with the current instance of octave and populate a
toolbox of active functions that are available.  This way the user can
drag (or click insert) these functions into the current worksheet or
console.  Another advantage of this embedded nature is users can
transparently move commands back and forth between the console.  This is a
main agrivation of my wife, since she debugs a command in the console, and
then copies it to the worksheet piece by piece.

I have to admit, I have not used the matlab IDE in years, so I am looking
at this from the point of view that I use KDevelop for my C++ development.

Cheers
   -ian reinhart geiser

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