Online Developer Meeting (2021-04-27)

• Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2021 @ 18:00 UTC
• Location: https://meet.jit.si/octave-dev-2021-04-27

Todays topics

• Meet and greet 5 minutes before meeting (audio testing).

MXE Octave branches

• Which changes should go on which branch?
  • "default": everything new
  • "release": conservative updates
    • new Octave packages + dependent libraries (if necessary and applicable)
    • MXE libraries which have severe bugs / security issues.
• Which branch should the buildbots use?
  • http://buildbot.octave.org:8010/ (jwe)
    • Not really sure about a definite decision
  • https://buildbot.octave.space/ (Kai)
    • General move to "release" branch (probably May)
    • One additional build of "w64" with "default" branch

Buildbots

• Find out how to trigger a build on changes in two repositories?
  • Untested idea: https://github.com/gnu-octave/octave-buildbot/pull/9/files

String class strategy

• Strategy for transition to string class syntax (incompatible to current double-quoted character vectors in Octave)?

C++17

• Updates: https://octave.discourse.group/t/using-c-17-features/1026
• Allow using more modern C++ dialects (C++17 STL std::filesystem or boost::filesystem)?
  • qt6 requires C++17 https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-6.0-released
  • gcc 8.x (2018) still not C++17 feature complete (e.g. std::filesystem cannot fully be used, no benefit)
    • https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support#cpp17
    • https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/status.html#status.iso.2017

General consensus was to stay with C++11 until a "killer application" shows up that would really changing to a newer standard.

Short introduction: SavannahAPI

• Former "Release burn down chart".
• https://octave.space/savannah/

Bug Maintenance/Clean Up

The author of this topic did not attend the meeting. There was a short discussion about GSoC and the Short projects page.

There are already ~1600 open bugs at 1 min/bug this is over 1 day. This is not manageable. Many of these could be closed:

• Are complete because a new version is released #53576

• Can be implemented since there is a new version #50820 notice comments 24 & 25

• Maintainers have the function but have not submitted it #58530

For preparing for GSoC it states to fix bugs, missing functions, etc. The ideal scenario would mean being inundated with fixes, and new functions. A maintained Short projects page would be necessary to avoid comments as in #32088.

What is the best approach to resolving this?

• A new wiki page so one with permission can see all the "easy closes".
  • Please reuse the Short projects page for this purpose, which is currently unmaintained.
• Pinging bugs/patches for a status update.
  • Yes, always a good idea and this is basically what happens very slowly. It would be great to see more volunteers triaging the bug and patch trackers.

Previous topics

Octave 7

Improve graphics

• Consult professional OpenGL developer to review code Any news here?
  • General agreement to spend Octave project money on this

Implement Matlabs new input validation

• jwe can create dummy tree-elements
  • Problem if values are evaluated, the "right" action must be done
• Can those validation statements come at arbitrary positions or only at the beginning of the file?

Command Window Widget

• Updates: https://octave.discourse.group/t/new-command-window-widget/501/29

Backend code improvements

• "Ditch" old UNIX system functions (e.g. popen)
  • https://octave.discourse.group/t/moving-posix-system-call-and-library-functions-out-of-core-octave/1027
  • Move to package?
• performance of symbol lookup
  • use std::unordered_map, rather than std::map to increase performance (e.g. of interpreter lookups)
  • Potentially implement "import" keyword? That would probably slow down symbol lookup some more.
• Replace custom reference counters with implementation using std::shared_ptr
  • Some instances are more difficult to replace. jwe will post something about this on the discourse forum.
• improve HDF5 integration

Documentation

• Updates: https://octave.discourse.group/t/function-reference-documentation/959/7 and bug #60313
• Split Octave manual https://octave.org/doc/latest into
  • Function reference, like Octave Forge https://octave.sourceforge.io/docs.php
    • Prototype (Kai): https://octave.org/doc/ref/octave/overview.html
  • Usage manual (like the current one, more detailed, without @docstrings)

See also

• Next meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2021-05-25)
• Last meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2021-03-23)