How do I contribute to develop an open source alternative to Mathematica/Matlab?

  • Context: MATLAB 
  • Thread starter Thread starter elduderino
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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers on how to contribute to the development of open source alternatives to proprietary software like Mathematica and Matlab. Participants explore the necessary skills, programming languages, and community involvement required for someone new to open source development.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses a desire to join the open source community, mentioning their familiarity with C/C++ and their limited experience with command line operations, suggesting a need to learn shell scripting.
  • Another participant points out that Maxima is likely written in Lisp, indicating uncertainty about how to get involved in its programming.
  • Links to resources for Octave and NumPy are provided, with one participant noting that NumPy is modeled after MATLAB but uses Python.
  • There is a suggestion that a native GUI for Octave or NumPy on Mac OS X would be beneficial.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the specific steps to take for contributing to open source projects, and multiple suggestions for languages and tools are presented without resolution.

Contextual Notes

Participants express varying levels of familiarity with programming languages and open source contributions, and there is uncertainty regarding the specific requirements for involvement in different projects.

Who May Find This Useful

Individuals interested in contributing to open source software, particularly those looking to develop alternatives to proprietary computational tools.

elduderino
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Mathematica/Maple/Matlab are awesome and they use algorithms which make computations faster, but they are proprietary and closed source. wxMaxima and Sage Math exist, and I need to enter this developer community. But its mostly composed of uber-jargon that I'm not yet easy with. I haven't contributed to any open source software stuff yet. I want to dive in.

I know C/C++ only right now. What do I need to learn? I work in Linux and Mac, but I've mostly been a GUI person. I don't type anything more than cp, rmdir/mkdir, cat, etc. on the bash prompt. I think I should learn shell scripting but I'm not sure how useful it would be for my goal. What other languages/skill would be required?

Also, what component of these developer communities require coding, or is developing algorithms to do computations the hard part?

How long should it take for me to start understanding their programs, and then start creating my own plug-ins/apps for them (if I use the right term).
 
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Well, I can't answer your questions in any good detail, but this website might help you out.

http://sourceforge.net/

Thanks
Matt
 
I am pretty sure Maxima is written in Lisp. I am not sure exactly how one gets involved in programming it.
 
Dr Transport said:
http://octave.sourceforge.net/ to support or help develop for Octave (a Matlab clone).

NumPy is a similar open source project that I have heard good things about. It is modeled after MATLAB but uses Python as its underlying language.

If there were a Mac OS X native GUI for either Octave or NumPy, I for one would think that would be very neat.
 

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