GNU Octave: A high-level interactive language for numerical computations

Author : John W. Eaton, Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin (original developer of GNU Octave)
ISBN : 0-9541617-2-6
Pages : 324
Publication Date : March 2002
Publisher : Network Theory Limited
Free License : GNU General Public License

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Book Excerpts:

This manual is the definitive guide to GNU Octave, an interactive environment for numerical computation.

Octave was originally intended to be companion software for an undergraduate-level textbook on chemical reactor design being written by James B. Rawlings of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and John G. Ekerdt of the University of Texas.

Clearly, Octave is now much more than just another "courseware" package with limited utility beyond the classroom. Although the initial goals were somewhat vague, it was intended since the beginning to create something that would enable students to solve realistic problems, and that they could use for many things other than chemical reactor design problems.

There are those who would say that the students should be taught Fortran instead, because that is the computer language of engineering, but the students ended up spending far too much time trying to figure out why their Fortran code crashes and not enough time learning about chemical engineering. With Octave, most students pick up the basics quickly, and are using it confidently in just a few hours.

Although it was originally intended to be used to teach reactor design, it has been used in several other undergraduate and graduate courses in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Texas, and the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas has been using it for teaching differential equations and linear algebra as well.

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