What's missing from MATLAB Central...

This is not a question.

It just dawned on me what is missing from MATLAB Central.

While the File Exchange and MATLAB Answers are both very useful in their own right, the problem is this.

Most open source communities expand their platforms by collaboration on common problems. That doesn't exist on MATLAB.

I could go on, but I believe my point is simple enough to be made with just that statement.

Paul

Answer 1

[Jan]

An "r".

    ;-)

[Jan]

After the title of the question has been changed from "What's missing from MATLAB Cental" to "...Central", this answer will confuse all readers until the end of days.

Answer 2

[Kevin Claytor]

1) Github hosts a large number of MATLAB projects, and would be a great place to start if you want to jump into something collaborative; https://github.com/languages/Matlab

2) If you want to work on more core language / implementation issues, GNU Octave is an GPL'ed open source MATLAB clone; http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/

[Jan]

I looked around a bit in the github link. I've found some code copied from the FileExchange, but without the corresponding BSD license files. Obviously these Github members do not care about the license, even or because it has only so few restrictions.

In addition I cannot claim that the page structure is any kind of intuitive. I see avatars and some links, but I cannot imagine what or where I could find interesting stuff.

So my first impression of Github is negative, when I compare it with the most likely less powerful FEX.

Answer 3

[per isakson]

Yes, there is little "collaboration on common problems" at the Matlab Central. To me it appears to be a good idea. Why doesn't it happen?

I guess there is a message in the fact that a typo causes more interest, votes and discussion than the subject you try to raise.

Which types of "common problems" are suitable for collaboration?

How should the collaboration be carried out?

A thread here at Answer and a contribution on the FEX provide the tools needed to make an experiment. (The Mathworks might provide better tools if we demonstrate that there is an interest.)

The FEX-contributions, Toward a program development and documentation toolbox, is kind of an invitation to collaboration, which didn't receive much interest.

Answer 4

[Jan]

There have been several discussions about adding new functionality to the FileExchange, see e.g. Answers: License files from the FEX. Most of all solving the dependencies automatically would be very helpful.

Answer 5

[Tom]

Aside from a spell checker, I find it a bit weird that the profiles aren't linked together, i.e. a user's Answers profile is separate from the FEX one.

[Ryan]

I agree, it's never been an inconvenience to me... just odd they're not linked.

[Jan]

My Firefox has a built-in spell checker.

[Sean de Wolski]

Spell checker is not at all as good as it sounds. Afterall there aren't too many dictionaries that contain words like fmincon or bsxfun...

But I guess those are limitations on Merriam Webster's end.

[Tom]

Just to clarify, the spell check remark was another, slightly unfair jab at the title (which I now see has changed...)

[Kevin Claytor]

Although you could add the entire MATLAB function library to whatever spell-checker is being used....

[Jan]

No, Kevin, not the entire libs: BSXFUN must be excluded, because it is a genuine typo. "Binary operation with singelton expansion" must be called "biopwisefun" or "bopsinxfun".

Anyhow, I'd prefer the DWIM operator, which is still not documented:

x = rand(1, 10);
A = rand(10, 10);
feature('dwim', 'on');
Y = A * x;
feature('dwim', 'off');

[Matt Fig]

Error using feature An unknown feature was specified

[Sean de Wolski]

DWIM was still causing some obscure behavior for the 12b release. That's probably why they left it out...

For example:

dwim on
Y = A*x;

Unable to resolve potentially fatal DWIM conflict

[Walter Roberson]

feature() is operating-system specific.

[Jan]

@Walter: 'dwim' is even user-specific. Because this has a higher precedence, it is not OS-specific anymore.

@Sean: Your example must fail, if you have installed the "fatal DWIM" toolbox. Perhaps Yair knows details of the "polite and graceful DWIM" features.

[Yair Altman]

@Jan et al - I think very few people here have followed past discussions and are aware that the DWIM ( Do What I Mean ) feature is still under intense requirements discussions and is not expected to ship until Matlab 10.0 (or HG2, or the end of time, whichever comes first).