mailing list vs. forum
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
I know it's a never-ending discussion whether to have a forum or to use
mailing lists. So this is just a "ping".
First I've just noticed that you need 4 clicks to get from the gretl
homepage to the view of current threads in the list. And that assumes
that you know where to click each time. So I think one way to make the
mailing lists more "forum-like" (in a passive read-only) mode is simply
to provide a more direct access to the archives.
Secondly, Allin said that we might want to shop around for the most
suitable platform, instead of just using sourceforge. Ok, but where to
go shopping? Any concrete suggestions? I volunteer to check them out.
Finally, as the Wiki is de facto dead, I wonder if the link from the
homepage should be removed. IMHO it could be mistaken for the
(non-existent) forum and then creates a bad impression.
thanks,
sven
8 years, 1 month
point size in gnuplot
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
here's a very concrete feature request: In gretl's GUI window for
gnuplot there's still some space below the drop-down list for the point
symbol (which applies at least to "points" and "lines-points" styles).
IMO it would be useful to put a box there to specify the point size; for
example, a value of 0.5 would imply adding "ps 0.5" to the respective
gnuplot command line. The box could be exactly like the one for
linewidth, but of course would only be active whenever the point type
selector is active as well.
As a more general remark, I've learned that with gnuplot 5 it seems
easier (compared to gnuplot 4) to handle the data values that are given
"inline" in the gnuplot file, by specifying a named "datablock". Stuff
like shaded areas and so forth should be easier to achieve from gretl's
side I guess. But Debian for example switched to gnuplot 5 less than a
year ago (if I understand correctly, but could be wrong?). I wonder what
an acceptable timeframe for gretl would be to require gnuplot 5.
thanks,
sven
8 years, 4 months
Special restriction syntax in VECM doesn't work anymore
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
I've run into a "matrix not conformable" problem, using the example
restriction code from ch. 27 (p. 237 in my A4 PDF version dated January
2016):
<hansl>
open australia
list vecmvars = PAU PUS E IAU IUS
vecm 2 4 vecmvars
# from here on code snippet from ch. 27 in user guide
matrix I4 = I(4)
matrix vR = I4**(I4~zeros(4,1))
matrix vq = mshape(I4,16,1)
restrict
R = vR
q = vq
end restrict
</hansl>
This is on gretl 2016a, and the hansl code where I noticed the problem
first is not new, so I'm relatively sure that this used to work last
year (as it should).
Any ideas?
thanks,
sven
8 years, 4 months
gretl on OS X: El Capitan problem
by Allin Cottrell
I've heard off-list from someone who uses gretl on Mac about a nasty
crashing bug, and I'm able to reproduce it. It seems to be (a) a GTK
bug and (b) triggered only on El Capitan.
To crash gretl: maximize a gretl window, then mouse up to the top of
the screen to reveal the window controls and press the close button.
The crash may not happen every time you do this, but in my experience
it happens pretty reliably if you try a few times. It may also be
possible to provoke the crash by using gretl in OS X's new Split View
mode. Apparently gretl is not the only program to suffer from this.
So, first, a word to the wise: to avoid data loss, it's best not to
maximize gretl windows on El Capitan. Since gretl is not designed to
run full-screen anyway that shouldn't be too much of a hardship.
As for a fix, I'm working on it but it's tricky. The problem seems to
lie in GdkQuartz, a component of GTK that's written in Objective C
using Apple APIs. Objective C is, to me, a strange language bearing
little resemblance to C, and I'm not at all familiar with the Apple
APIs. But I'm hoping we can piggy-back off work done by others who are
seeing this problem with their applications.
Allin
8 years, 5 months
ISI 2017
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
I've just noticed that the ISI (Int'l Statistical Institute) 2017 World
Congress will be taking "Special Topics Sessions" proposals from March
through August (2016!). See www.isi2017.org.
The congress will take place in Marrakesh (Morocco) in July. From
personal experience with another conference in Marrakesh in the month of
June some years ago I can say that it's very hot, but the heat is dry
and the conference venues are AC'ed. I didn't even stay at an AC'ed
hotel. The heat at the gretl conference in Berlin last year might have
been worse...
I haven't been able to find any information about the conference fees,
just a mention of "discount registration" by April 2017.
As I am now an ISI member anyway, I could act as the submitter of such a
STS proposal. -- One caveat: This is all very fresh, I still have to
make up my mind as well whether this is really a good idea.
Of course we would need a bunch of presentations, presumably about how
great gretl works in practice. Whether or not that includes its use in
teaching I don't know yet. Please tell me if you could imagine yourself
participating in principle (without any commitment at this stage, of
course).
If there are a handful of people willing to do this the plans could be
made more concrete over the next few months.
Thanks,
Sven
8 years, 5 months
Gamma probability density function
by Artur T.
Dear all,
I am just trying to replicate this MATLAB example of the Gamma
probability density function:
http://de.mathworks.com/help/stats/gampdf.html?requestedDomain=www.mathwo...
According to this, Matlab yields for shape=scale=1 and a x-vector seq(1,5) :
y = 0.3679 0.3033 0.2388 0.1947 0.1637
but with gretl I obtain correctly (just checked it with some statistical
tables)
y (1 x 5)
0.36788 0.13534 0.049787 0.018316 0.0067379
<hansl>
mu = seq(1,5)
y = pdf(g,1,1,mu)
</hansl>
Just out of curiosity: What is Matlab doing? (the same results are
obtained by Octave)
Artur
8 years, 5 months
.%
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
ok I admit I have no concrete use case for this, it is a purely academic
question, but hey, for completeness: There is the pretty standard '%'
modulo operation. Why not have the matrix elementwise analog '.%' as well?
I also note that gretl already allows negative arguments there, so a
special error treatment for some negative matrix elements wouldn't be
necessary.
cheers,
sven
8 years, 5 months
