From: Ara.T.Howard@...
Date: 2005-07-08T06:40:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby as mathematical language

On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, none wrote:

> That is cool about narray--I couldn't figure out from the docs how to do
> that.

it took me a little while too..

> Regarding the other links--I guess I have a problem with that approach.  In
> R or Matlab (which have huge limitations), you know that you can sit down,
> open a session, grab some big matrices, compose them, do some nifty math,
> make some publishable plots, and save everything before you leave.  You
> don't worry about whether Ruby Gnu plot is going to work with some other
> library you downloaded to try to read CDF files and whether you will have
> the linear algebra tools you need.

this is totally understandable.  i was just pointing out that narray is a good
foundation.  it already supports graphics and some other neat stuff (it's
integrated with netcdf support for example) - added math routines would be
really easy i think - but would require a little c.

> I also realize there is a big world of Ruby in Japanese that I can't really
> tap into.

yeah... some translators on the list would be nice...

> In light of all my b*ing, does it seem like your wiki would be a good
> place to start a Scientific Ruby Environment discussion area?

absolutely - it's there as a community resource.  that wiki is pretty
powerfull: it allows things such as subpages, file uploads (nifty for
diagrams) and acls.  ping me offline and i'll add you as a member.  the way i
have it setup members can add new members.  in this way i hope to gather
meaningful contributions with minimal risk of spam - since i have zero time to
admin.

any ideas about, or uses of, the wiki are welcome.  you needn't ask - just
dive in ;-)

cheers.

-a
-- 
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