[IPOL discuss] matlab software guidelines

[Enric Meinhardt-Llopis]

Dear All,

Here is a draft proposal for the IPOL software guidelines:

https://tools.ipol.im/wiki/ref/software_guidelines/drafts/


Main changes:

1. Separate the initial checklist into requirements and
recommendations (as suggested by L.Alvarez)
2. Add support for M-code, the language accepted by the Matlab and
Octave interpreters (by popular demand)


Points that should not be controversial:

1. The support for M-code.  This has been deemed inevitable by the
majority of the editorial board.


Possibly controversial points:

1. The recommendation (not the requirement), that M-code should run
correctly on Octave.  In my experience, all the Matlab code that I
have tried work inside Octave without any change and it gives the same
results, but I do not know whether this is representative.

2. The M-code submission is a function, not a stand-alone program.  My
impression is that people who write in Matlab rarely, if ever, write
standalone programs.  Instead, they write functions that they call
from within the Matlab interface.  Since there is a standard and
unique way of representing images in matlab (as matrices), it seems
reasonable to ask for a function, not a stand-alone program.  However,
this means that the demo editors will have to write by hand a thin
stand-alone program that simply calls this function, for each M-code
submission.


Future changes: description of Python code and example Python program.
This needs further discussion: will a Python submission be given by a
function or by a stand-alone program?  I think in that case a
stand-alone program is the better choice, but I am not sure.



Everybody is invited to contribute to the new IPOL Software
Guidelines, especially experienced Python and Matlab programmers,
keeping the spirit of the previous versions.


The software guidelines are a sort of "constitution" of IPOL.
Constitutions are written by poets, not by lawyers.  I am not a poet,
but I can appreciate poetry.  I would love this document to be as
beautiful as possible!

Best,
Enric