Octave odepkg

[siko1056]

Greetings Carlo,

In yesterdays developer meeting [1] the topic came up, that the odepkg
0.8.5 hosted at SourceForge is still part of the MXE Octave MS Windows
builds.  Unfortunately, it causes a failure when testing/using the
package [2].

Do you agree to remove the odepkg from MXE Octave, as large portions are
already part of Octave core?

Another question is the latest development repository.  It used to be on
BitBucket [3], but they shut down Mercurial repositories, thus it is
unavailable.  Is there a new location available or any plans for further
development?

Kai

[1] https://wiki.octave.org/Online_Developer_Meeting_(2020-10-27)
[2] https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?59338
[3] https://wiki.octave.org/Odepkg

[Carlo de Falco-2]

>
> Il giorno 28 ott 2020, alle ore 07:56, Kai Torben Ohlhus <[hidden email]> ha scritto:
>
> Greetings Carlo,
>
> In yesterdays developer meeting [1] the topic came up, that the odepkg
> 0.8.5 hosted at SourceForge is still part of the MXE Octave MS Windows
> builds.  Unfortunately, it causes a failure when testing/using the
> package [2].
>
> Do you agree to remove the odepkg from MXE Octave, as large portions are
> already part of Octave core?
>
> Another question is the latest development repository.  It used to be on
> BitBucket [3], but they shut down Mercurial repositories, thus it is
> unavailable.  Is there a new location available or any plans for further
> development?
>
> Kai
>
> [1] https://wiki.octave.org/Online_Developer_Meeting_(2020-10-27)
> [2] https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?59338
> [3] https://wiki.octave.org/Odepkg

Hi Kai,

First of all, as you noted, the significance of odepkg has changed a lot
over time.

odepkg used to be the place to go to find (almost) matlab compatible
ODE solvers for Octave.

Now, most matlab compatible solvers have been made much more compatible and moved to core,
so what is left in the package is mainly a collection of very specific advanced methods for some niche problems.

Also the repository on SourceForge is out of date and may conflict with the core functions.

So, YES, definitely the SF version of odepkg should be removed from MXE.
And probably very few people will miss it.

That does not mean, though that  development of odepkg, will be abandoned,
that is indeed planned, although it will require a major overhaul to simplify odepkg
an make it more maintainable,

I was aware bitbucket was going to phase out mercurial, but nonetheless I forgot to move my stuff out of there ...
I'll move the repo to GIT as soon as possible.

All the best,
c.

P.S. I also think odepkg should be removed from OctaveForge alltogether, pkg-index is a much more suitable place to distribute it from

[siko1056]

On 10/28/20 7:13 PM, Carlo De Falco wrote:

>>
>> Il giorno 28 ott 2020, alle ore 07:56, Kai Torben Ohlhus <[hidden email]> ha scritto:
>>
>> Greetings Carlo,
>>
>> In yesterdays developer meeting [1] the topic came up, that the odepkg
>> 0.8.5 hosted at SourceForge is still part of the MXE Octave MS Windows
>> builds.  Unfortunately, it causes a failure when testing/using the
>> package [2].
>>
>> Do you agree to remove the odepkg from MXE Octave, as large portions are
>> already part of Octave core?
>>
>> Another question is the latest development repository.  It used to be on
>> BitBucket [3], but they shut down Mercurial repositories, thus it is
>> unavailable.  Is there a new location available or any plans for further
>> development?
>>
>> Kai
>>
>> [1] https://wiki.octave.org/Online_Developer_Meeting_(2020-10-27)
>> [2] https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?59338
>> [3] https://wiki.octave.org/Odepkg
>
> Hi Kai,
>
> First of all, as you noted, the significance of odepkg has changed a lot
> over time.
>
> odepkg used to be the place to go to find (almost) matlab compatible
> ODE solvers for Octave.
>
> Now, most matlab compatible solvers have been made much more compatible and moved to core,
> so what is left in the package is mainly a collection of very specific advanced methods for some niche problems.
>
> Also the repository on SourceForge is out of date and may conflict with the core functions.
>
> So, YES, definitely the SF version of odepkg should be removed from MXE.
> And probably very few people will miss it.
>
> That does not mean, though that  development of odepkg, will be abandoned,
> that is indeed planned, although it will require a major overhaul to simplify odepkg
> an make it more maintainable,
>
> I was aware bitbucket was going to phase out mercurial, but nonetheless I forgot to move my stuff out of there ...
> I'll move the repo to GIT as soon as possible.
>
> All the best,
> c.
>
> P.S. I also think odepkg should be removed from OctaveForge alltogether, pkg-index is a much more suitable place to distribute it from
>

Thanks for the detailed response.

Recently, I am involved into Octave Forge, too.  If you like to share
some of your opinions, I started a topic on Discourse [4].

Until there is a "new stable home" for the odepkg development, I favor
to leave the Octave Forge repository of the old odepkg untouched.  Is
this okay with you?

Kai

[4]
https://octave.discourse.group/t/online-developer-meeting-2020-11-10-the-future-of-octave-packages/349

[Carlo de Falco-2]

Il giorno 28 ott 2020, alle ore 11:26, Kai Torben Ohlhus <[hidden email]> ha scritto:

Thanks for the detailed response.

Recently, I am involved into Octave Forge, too.  If you like to share
some of your opinions, I started a topic on Discourse [4].

Yes, I noticed that thread, I will try to join the online meeting on 11/10

Until there is a "new stable home" for the odepkg development, I favor
to leave the Octave Forge repository of the old odepkg untouched.  Is
this okay with you?

As for the repository I see no problem with leaving it on sourceforge.

I would try to make it clear that it may not be a good idea to download 

and install the released package from OctaveForge with newer versions of Octave.

But this seems to be already the case from what I see on the website ...

Kai

c.

[mmuetzel]

Am 28. Oktober 2020 um 11:13 Uhr schrieb "Carlo De Falco":
> Also the repository on SourceForge is out of date and may conflict with the core functions.
>
> So, YES, definitely the SF version of odepkg should be removed from MXE.
> And probably very few people will miss it.

I removed odepkg from the list of Octave Forge packages that are built in MXE Octave here:
https://hg.octave.org/mxe-octave/rev/e50a3ed99da0

> That does not mean, though that  development of odepkg, will be abandoned,
> that is indeed planned, although it will require a major overhaul to simplify odepkg
> an make it more maintainable,

The build rules and all local patches that we used to apply to odepkg (mostly to get it to compile with newer Octave versions) are still intact. So hopefully that will allow to get the new odepkg back easily once it is available.

Thanks for your work on that package - and for the feedback. :-)

Markus