[Pkg-octave-devel] Octave 3.0 or 3.2 in wheezy

[Alberto Hamilton]

El sáb, 12-01-2013 a las 00:30 +0100, Thomas Weber escribió:
> Hi Alberto, 
> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 03:27:38PM +0000, Alberto Hamilton wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> >   I've used Octave for years, specially control toolbox. But, as you
> > know, Octave 3.6 has a control toolbox that is not compatible with
> > previous releases (3.0 or 3.2). 
> > 
> >  I've undated my system to wheezy but I found that octave3.0 and
> > octave3.2 has disappeared from wheezy. 
> > 
> >  Are you planning to put octave3.0 or octave3.2 in Wheezy?
> 
> You already received two negative replies, but I think your question
> actually deserves a longer answer - even just to be able to point at it
> for future reference. 
> 
> The inclusion of two Octave versions in Debian steemed from the fact
> that the then "stable" version of Octave moved at a snails pace and people
> wanted all the features of the "testing" version (where the terms
> "stable" and "testing" refer to Octave terminology, not the Debian
> releases).  
> Development in Octave has changed a lot, so there is not much sense in
> keeping several versions in Debian. I actually think that the biggest
> achievement for Wheezy is the fact that we have got rid of the version
> number in the packages and just have one version in the archive.
> 
> There is also a longterm problem with keeping old versions: how long do
> you want to keep them? Nobody is working on Octave 3.2 anymore, let
> alone 3.0. Nobody cares about the old control package, either.
> So, at some point you *must* adapt your code to the changed control
> package. Just do it now and you can benefit from the improvements in
> both Octave and the control package.

Hello,

  thank you for your quick replies and for your work at Debian.

 I want you to understand my point of view. I've been working with
Octave for more than fifteen years and developed many m-scripts based on
control toolbox. Now, most of them stop to work when I update to Wheezy.
Changes in graphical functions (gset), function removed (tf, buildssic),
etc. make their update not trivial. 
 
I understand that the main problem is the Octave's (for my) erratic,
obscure and very bad documented development. But I hoped that I'll have
more time to adapt to this changes, at least having Octave3.2 in Wheezy.

I now have a hard decision: change all my programs, change my GNU/Linux
distribution, or rewrite my program for a more serious and stable
application.

Again thank you for your work.

Alberto