On Fri, 9 May 2008, Allin Cottrell wrote:
 On Thu, 8 May 2008, Sven Schreiber wrote:
> Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti schrieb:
>>
>> 1) we're working on an "ODBC connector", which enables gretl
>> to fetch data from DBMSes like Oracle, MySQL, Postgres
>> etcetera. The basic infrastructure is already in CVS: the
>> missing bits are (a) documentation (b) thorough testing (c) a
>> reasonable GUI interface. IMO, chances are this can be done
>> within the end of May and the ODBC facility (marked as
>> "experimental") can be included in 1.7.5;
>
> in principle this sounds cool, but what actually is the pressing
> need for it? Or to put it differently: should 1.7.5 really be
> delayed for that reason?
 I'm not sure the need is pressing, or that 1.7.5 should be delayed
 for this reason.  But also, I don't think Jack is saying that; I
 hear him as saying that since the ODBC material is quite far
 along, it might be possible to include it in 1.7.5 within the
 "natural" time-frame of the latter (i.e. fairly soon). 
I experimented with this quite a bit last week. The implemetation seems to 
be pretty robust (kudos to Allin). I suppose that, after writing some 
documetation (already partly done here), odbc can go in 1.7.5 as is now, 
with a big red "EXPERIMENTAL" sticker on it. We wouldn't have a GUI 
interface, but I can live with this.
> let me repeat my other question: do you want/need suggestions
> for the Kalman "API"/syntax/interface?
 Jack produced some useful working notes on this back in February.
 I'm taking the liberty of attaching his TeX source; comments are
 welcome. 
I'm attaching a revised version, which contains a quite cool idea (If I 
may say so myself) I had some time ago, that is using the KF as a 
simulation tool too. Comments very welcome.
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti