10:02 a.m.
Hi all,
I had lots to do recently, so I had very little time for action on the
list. The reason is, I was the local organiser for a conference we just
held here in Ancona (http://cide.info/conf/iceee2009.php), which was a lot
of work, so allow me to group in this one message a few not-so-closely
related items:
acf function: all in all, I like it. I have a few reservations as of now,
but I'll keep them to myself until I find some time to study the code
(next few days)
VAR/VECM stuff: ditto.
Gretl wiki: it's great that Andreas has started putting material on it. I
hope more will follow. My apologies for it not working properly for some
time, but it ought to be ok by now.
Google summer of code: one of the people I met in person for the first
time at the conference was Stefano Iacus, from the R core team, who is one
of the maintainers of the foreign package. In the past, we grabbed code
from one another: they got the Eviews filter from Allin's implementation,
we got the Stata filter, IIRC we both got SPSS from PSPP. We agreed that
it'd be great to have a separate project for filters as a C library that
gretl and R could both link to centralise efforts; however, it'd be quite
a lot of work. A nice idea that Stefano had was to propose this as a GSOC
project, with joint R/gretl sponsorship; however, I understand that
there's little time left to set up this kind of initiative, so if you guys
think it's a good idea, it's time to start planning it.
Mac users: since the Mac subpopulation is not very active on our mailing
lists, I got hold of all mac users I could find at the conference to
ask them (1) if they use gretl and (2) if they found and bugs or
inconveniences. Much to my delight, I got yes to (1) and no to (2) in all
cases. Again, kudos to Allin!
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti
10:28 a.m.
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti wrote:
acf function: all in all, I like it. I have a few reservations
as of now, but I'll keep them to myself until I find some time
to study the code (next few days)
VAR/VECM stuff: ditto.
I'll look forward to hearing your suggestions; I'm not
super-confident about what I've done with these things.
Google summer of code: one of the people I met in person for the
first time at the conference was Stefano Iacus, from the R core
team, who is one of the maintainers of the foreign package. In
the past, we grabbed code from one another: they got the Eviews
filter from Allin's implementation, we got the Stata filter,
IIRC we both got SPSS from PSPP. We agreed that it'd be great to
have a separate project for filters as a C library that gretl
and R could both link to centralise efforts; however, it'd be
quite a lot of work. A nice idea that Stefano had was to propose
this as a GSOC project, with joint R/gretl sponsorship; however,
I understand that there's little time left to set up this kind
of initiative, so if you guys think it's a good idea, it's time
to start planning it.
Sounds great. Personally I don't expect to have time to plan
this, but if anyone else is willing to take the initiative on
gretl's behalf I'll be glad to "sign on".
Mac users: since the Mac subpopulation is not very active on our
mailing lists, I got hold of all mac users I could find at the
conference to ask them (1) if they use gretl and (2) if they
found and bugs or inconveniences. Much to my delight, I got yes
to (1) and no to (2) in all cases. Again, kudos to Allin!
Good to hear! I've felt a bit in the dark as to how gretl works
on the Mac, although it works fine on the one machine I'm able to
test on (from time to time), running OS X 10.4. One thing I have
in mind, but haven't managed to get to yet, is to try out the new
native Quartz implementation of GTK+ for the Mac, which now seems
to be reasonably mature. If we can get that working it would cut
out the dependency on X11 and make gretl somewhat more Mac-ish.
Allin.
3:06 p.m.
Dear developers,
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti wrote:
Mac users: since the Mac subpopulation is not very active on our
mailing lists, I got hold of all mac users I could find at the
conference to ask them (1) if they use gretl and (2) if they
found and bugs or inconveniences. Much to my delight, I got yes
to (1) and no to (2) in all cases. Again, kudos to Allin!
I'm a Mac user and I heavily use gretl on my work and in my course
(I'm a Ph.D. student). Almost every time I found a bug I'd reported
it on the gretl mail list (e.g. accented session filenames).
In relation to the inconveniences, I also use gretl on Windows XP
and I can say that gretl has almost exactly the same characteris-
tics in both OS. In that point I can proceed to the Allin's mail:
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Allin Cottrell wrote:
Good to hear! I've felt a bit in the dark as to how gretl works
on the Mac, although it works fine on the one machine I'm able to
test on (from time to time), running OS X 10.4. One thing I have
in mind, but haven't managed to get to yet, is to try out the new
native Quartz implementation of GTK+ for the Mac, which now seems
to be reasonably mature. If we can get that working it would cut
out the dependency on X11 and make gretl somewhat more Mac-ish.
I think the inconvenience in the Mac OS/X version of gretl is rela-
ted to the gretl's X11 dependence. If we can handle this problem I
think we really can reach the more Mac-ish gretl.
Best,
Henrique C. de Andrade
Doutorando em Economia Aplicada
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
www.ufrgs.br/ppge
6:34 a.m.
> Google summer of code: one of the people I met in person for the
> first time at the conference was Stefano Iacus, from the R core
> team, who is one of the maintainers of the foreign package. In
> the past, we grabbed code from one another: they got the Eviews
> filter from Allin's implementation, we got the Stata filter,
> IIRC we both got SPSS from PSPP. We agreed that it'd be great to
> have a separate project for filters as a C library that gretl
> and R could both link to centralise efforts; however, it'd be
> quite a lot of work. A nice idea that Stefano had was to propose
> this as a GSOC project, with joint R/gretl sponsorship; however,
> I understand that there's little time left to set up this kind
> of initiative, so if you guys think it's a good idea, it's time
> to start planning it.
Sounds great. Personally I don't expect to have time to plan
this, but if anyone else is willing to take the initiative on
gretl's behalf I'll be glad to "sign on".
I am glad that Jack
brought up this issue. Last year, I have mentioned
personally to Allin that applying to GSoC could be a good idea. It was
too late to do it so, I had offered that I could help organizing this
next (this) year. I haven't done this before but I think what needs to
be done is we have to determine several potential projects that an
interested CS student can undertake over the summer. Then, we need to
apply to Google with a well written info on Gretl (and R if this is to
be a joint effort) along with the proposed projects.
So, first we need to discuss what would be some of the useful projects
that we can propose. I think having the seperate library for filters
for SPSS, Stata etc. sounds great for a project. So that is one. I can
think of some others. What do you think of:
1)- Importing more statistical distributions to gretl using R's
stats-library. Gnumeric is using R's library and that way they have
the most accurate functions regarding statistical distributions and
their inverses among the various spreadsheet software. I know this
from my own published study:
http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/csdana/v52y2008i10p4579-4586.html
I think we can have lots of new statistical distributions and their
inverse functions if a student imported some of the code or
implemented the algorithms from R or some other resource.
2)- I remember that at one point Allin asked for help regarding
setting up a nicer and more detailed preferences menu where many
things that are adjustable only with the command line is accessible
from the GUI. I think a project involving this together with maybe
some other GUI improvements can be a good idea.
3)- Another one is improving the gnuplot integration so that more and
better looking graphs can be produced. I think visualization is very
important for a program like gretl and I don't think we are using
gnuplot to its potential (unless we learn gnuplot's own language). R
is great in easily producing a large selection of beautiful looking
plots and so should gretl, using its brilliant graphical interface.
4)- How about implementing or improving some simple statistical
functionality? Simple things are useful especially in a classroom
environment but their implementation can be delayed or neglected
because the resources are limited. How about improving ANOVA for
example?
5)- Related to the above, how about implementing the "confidence band
plots for mean Y and individual Y values" as in Gujarati 4th edition
p.144? I really like the confidence elipse and this one is also very
nice. I find this especially useful in teaching and I think it would
be good to have it.
I am sure there are other things that you can think of. Once we decide
on a list of potential projects, I can write a detailed description
for each of them. Then, maybe Allin or Jack can help me refine them,
which I can submit to Google afterwards. Once we apply to GSoC, can
handle the various correspondence and bureacracy work. We also need to
assign a mentor for each project. I can volunteer for mentoring too if
it is something that I can do.
What do you think?
Cheers
Talha
--
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
4:21 p.m.
On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Talha Yalta wrote:
>> Google summer of code...
I am glad that Jack brought up this issue. Last year, I have
mentioned personally to Allin that applying to GSoC could be a
good idea. It was too late to do it so, I had offered that I
could help organizing this next (this) year. I haven't done this
before but I think what needs to be done is we have to determine
several potential projects that an interested CS student can
undertake over the summer. Then, we need to apply to Google with
a well written info on Gretl (and R if this is to be a joint
effort) along with the proposed projects.
Producing well-written proposals on _several_ potential projects
sounds daunting, but confining ourselves to the data importer
issue that Jack mentioned (perhaps plus one other) seems more
feasible.
In relation to your other project suggestions:
1)- Importing more statistical distributions to gretl using R's
stats-library... I think we can have lots of new statistical
distributions and their inverse functions if a student imported
some of the code or implemented the algorithms from R or some
other resource.
Agreed, this would be nice from our point of view, but I'm afraid
it sounds boring for the student (just re-coding).
2)- I remember that at one point Allin asked for help regarding
setting up a nicer and more detailed preferences menu where many
things that are adjustable only with the command line is
accessible from the GUI. I think a project involving this
together with maybe some other GUI improvements can be a good
idea.
You'd have to know gretl very well to do that; it's not a
"modular" task, which I think it the best thing for GSoC.
3)- Another one is improving the gnuplot integration so that
more and better looking graphs can be produced...
Sorry, but same comment as above.
4)- How about implementing or improving some simple statistical
functionality? Simple things are useful especially in a
classroom environment but their implementation can be delayed or
neglected because the resources are limited. How about improving
ANOVA for example?
I expect Andreas Rosenblad may have some suggestions on that
topic.
Once we decide on a list of potential projects, I can write a
detailed description for each of them. Then, maybe Allin or Jack
can help me refine them, which I can submit to Google
afterwards.
That's a handsome offer, thanks.
Allin.
6:07 a.m.
I would be lying if I said I am not surprised with the lack of
response followed by Allin's response on this matter.
Producing well-written proposals on _several_ potential projects
sounds daunting, but confining ourselves to the data importer
issue that Jack mentioned (perhaps plus one other) seems more
feasible.
Here is a well-written proposal from last year:
Title: Connecting R and PostgreSQL using DBI
The GSoC project involves creating an R add-on package that provides
the 'glue' between the DBI package and PostgreSQL. This will bridge
the existing gap for a DBI connection between the premier Open Source
data analysis system R and the object-relational database management
system PostgreSQL.
> 1)- Importing more statistical distributions to gretl using
R's
> stats-library... I think we can have lots of new statistical
> distributions and their inverse functions if a student imported
> some of the code or implemented the algorithms from R or some
> other resource.
Agreed, this would be nice from our point of view, but I'm afraid
it sounds boring for the student (just re-coding).
I have seen quite a few projects which involve recoding something in C
to gain speed and efficiency. Recoding may not be boring for the
student if he is doing it for the first time. He will be learning a
great deal, plus he gets paid for it. Good opportunity for us to get
something done which would be really boring for a senior programmer.
I see the point regarding some of the projects that I have proposed
being not modular and therefore unfeasible. On the other hand I don't
see what is wrong with my 5th proposal (regarding confidence bands)
that you did not comment on. It is modular, relatively simple,
something small but nice to have etc. I think it is perfectly doable.
Here is another similar project from last year:
Title: Adding 3D plots support for Gnumeric/GOffice
Gnumeric is capable of working on large sets of data and has a variety
of tools for visualising and analysis of 2D data. However, sometimes
two spatial dimensions are not enough. Especially scientists often
need to visualize their data in 3D. My goal will be to make it
possible by implementing the most commonly used visualization method -
a 3D surface plot. It will be implemented as a plug-in for GOffice
library, like all the other plots.
GSoC has some difficulties and extra work but I think it is worth it.
One difficulty is we need Allin, Jack and maybe others to accept
mentoring some of the students on the projects. As I said, I can
mentor one (maybe the confidence band project). GSoC is very nice
because that way you get more people involved, studying and
understanding the code. This is useful and healthy to have in the
long-run.
Together with the filters library project, here I see 3 doable
projects. Plus I was sure that some of you guys would come up with
some other, nice, modular and suitable proposals. That did'nt happen.
If you are set on doing the one joint project thing with R, there is
nothing more I can say.
Regards
Talha
--
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
8:41 a.m.
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Talha Yalta wrote:
I would be lying if I said I am not surprised with the lack of
response followed by Allin's response on this matter...
Another potential project occurs to me. That is, the gretl
database server is a reasonably small and self-contained CGI
program, written in C, that accepts queries passed by a web server
and outputs information about the gretl databases present on the
host system.
Depending on the query, the output is either HTML for display in a
browser, or plain text information for formatting and display
within gretl, or a gzipped database for downloading.
Anyone with basic competence in C could examine the whole program
an see what's going on fairly quickly.
Project: enhance this program in various ways:
* Audit its security and make it proof against DoS, etc.
* Include search functionality so that one could, for instance,
find all gretl databases that include a CPI measure, or find
databases that contain UK data, or whatever.
* With the help of the Document Type Definition for gretl function
packages, produce a nice searchable front-end for the function
packages on the server. So you could go to a certain web page and
examine the available packages in various dimensions (by author,
by keyword, etc.)
Allin.
8:24 a.m.
Another potential project occurs to me. That is, the gretl
database server is a reasonably small and self-contained CGI
program, written in C, that accepts queries passed by a web server
and outputs information about the gretl databases present on the
host system.
This sounds pretty good.
I have another idea: How about improving the NIST test suite? I think
having the functionality to automatically testing numerical accuracy
is one very important advantage of gretl over other packages. What we
have right now only applies the StRD linear regression test suite
although I see there are some scripts in the source folder for the
non-linear regression. It would be nice if the non-linear tests,
summary statistics and maybe some other functionality were also
included in the tests and the output was presented in a nicer way.
Since Andreas will soon be kindly adding more basic stats
functionality, looks like we can have 5 projects to apply with so far:
1)- C library for various file filters
2)- Enhancing the gretl database server
3)- Adding more statistical distributions
4)- Improving the NIST test suite function
5)- Adding confidence bands plots
There isa mentor requirement for each project. If we decide on the
above list, would it be acceptable if Allin was the mentor for 2 and
3, Jack for number 1 and I can be the mentor for number 4 and 5. Jack
are you there? Any more volunteers? Any more ideas? We can still add
more or replace some of the above with better ones.
Most people been pretty silent so far, which is a bit discouraging but
I still think this is useful and doable. At any rate, I think having 5
project proposals is prety good for an application. Sometimes the
students also come up with their own proposals as well.
Cheers
Talha
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 9:17 PM, <andreas.rosenblad(a)ltv.se> wrote:
Well, as soon as I have figured out how to compile gretl on code::blocks
and started to study the code, I will start to add all basic statistical
functionality (such as e.g. ANOVA) to make gretl a fully featured
statistical software (not just an econometrics package). Then gretl may
change the name to General Statistics, Econometrics and Time Series
Laboratory, or just gretl for short. :-)
--
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
8:03 a.m.
Nobody has replied to my latest email from Saturday. Jack has not said
a word on this. He is the one who opened the discussion and I am sure
he is aware of my messages. Noone except Allin proposed a project or
commented on the ones that I have proposed. This is rather puzzling to
me. I have already volunteered to prepare the applications, write the
final reports, be the mentor for 2 of the projects etc. Why is it so
difficult to say a few words on how to refine it or tell at least
wheather you support it or why this cannot be done.
It is not even like we will definitely get approved by Google anyway
but at least we can try it. I can't see why we should not even try it.
I can't see why we would not want to use this available resource to
improve gretl a little bit and help a few students get involved and
learn open source development.
Sorry for taking your time.
Talha
--
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
9:12 a.m.
Hello....
I was thinking about your proposition and I'm offering you as much
help as I can do. But I think that very good idea would be to create
(or help to find) online recources to improve necessary skills and
knowledge for people like me. I think that it would icrease number of
volunteers...
With regard,
Mariusz
Poland
2009/2/9 Talha Yalta <talhayalta(a)gmail.com>:
Nobody has replied to my latest email from Saturday. Jack has not
said
a word on this. He is the one who opened the discussion and I am sure
he is aware of my messages. Noone except Allin proposed a project or
commented on the ones that I have proposed. This is rather puzzling to
me. I have already volunteered to prepare the applications, write the
final reports, be the mentor for 2 of the projects etc. Why is it so
difficult to say a few words on how to refine it or tell at least
wheather you support it or why this cannot be done.
It is not even like we will definitely get approved by Google anyway
but at least we can try it. I can't see why we should not even try it.
I can't see why we would not want to use this available resource to
improve gretl a little bit and help a few students get involved and
learn open source development.
Sorry for taking your time.
Talha
--
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
_______________________________________________
Gretl-devel mailing list
Gretl-devel(a)lists.wfu.edu
http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-devel
--
Mariusz Doszyń
10:14 a.m.
gretl-devel-bounces(a)lists.wfu.edu skrev 2009-02-09 15:12:52 :
Hello....
I was thinking about your proposition and I'm offering you as much
help as I can do. But I think that very good idea would be to create
(or help to find) online recources to improve necessary skills and
knowledge for people like me. I think that it would icrease number of
volunteers...
With regard,
Mariusz
Poland
If you want to learn C in 21 days, you can start here:
http://www.geocities.com/feichinjan/c.html
Andreas
2009/2/9 Talha Yalta <talhayalta(a)gmail.com>:
> Nobody has replied to my latest email from Saturday. Jack has not said
> a word on this. He is the one who opened the discussion and I am sure
> he is aware of my messages. Noone except Allin proposed a project or
> commented on the ones that I have proposed. This is rather puzzling to
> me. I have already volunteered to prepare the applications, write the
> final reports, be the mentor for 2 of the projects etc. Why is it so
> difficult to say a few words on how to refine it or tell at least
> wheather you support it or why this cannot be done.
>
> It is not even like we will definitely get approved by Google anyway
> but at least we can try it. I can't see why we should not even try it.
> I can't see why we would not want to use this available resource to
> improve gretl a little bit and help a few students get involved and
> learn open source development.
>
> Sorry for taking your time.
> Talha
>
>
>
> --
> "Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
> more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
> moment." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
> --
>
> _______________________________________________
> Gretl-devel mailing list
> Gretl-devel(a)lists.wfu.edu
> http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-devel
>
--
Mariusz Doszyń
_______________________________________________
Gretl-devel mailing list
Gretl-devel(a)lists.wfu.edu
http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-devel
10:02 a.m.
New subject: GSOC (was: Several things)
On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, Talha Yalta wrote:
Nobody has replied to my latest email from Saturday. Jack has not
said
a word on this. He is the one who opened the discussion and I am sure
he is aware of my messages. Noone except Allin proposed a project or
commented on the ones that I have proposed. This is rather puzzling to
me.
You know, Talha, people happen to have lives :-)
I'm going back to your 7/2 proposal:
1)- C library for various file filters
2)- Enhancing the gretl database server
3)- Adding more statistical distributions
4)- Improving the NIST test suite function
5)- Adding confidence bands plots
and I could add
6)- Improving function packages management (more on this later)
On (1) to (5), I'm with Allin. While (1) and (2) are doable, (3) is IMO
not worth attempting, at least for now: for statistical distributions we
rely ATM mostly on netlib. The R guys have their own code, and GSL is yet
another independent implementation. I don't see huge advantages in
standardising on one, plus it would be boring and complicated at the same
time. I don't find (4) and (5) particularly exciting, so of course I'm not
against them but it's not something I'm eager to spend any time on.
(6) is probably something feasible and IMO worth doing. At the moment, we
manage function packages from within gretl, which is a neat solution when
packages are few and little. However, the present solution is not IMHO
well suited for more complex contributions. What I'd like to see is
something similar to R's library mechanism. Outline:
a) we set up a sourceforge project called gretl-packages or so
b) function writers upload to sourceforge tar.gz or zip archives, whose
internal structure is well defined. I'd abandon our custom-made xml
structure in favour of an ordinary archive which contains subdirectories.
c) we introduce a gretl command (which could well be modelled after R's
install.library() command) which takes care of connecting to sourceforge,
downloading the bundle and uncompressing it in the proper place. Of
course, a GUI interface could be added as well.
For example: suppose that I wrote a package implementing (say)
multivariate GARCH models. I'd produce an archive mgarch.tar.gz containing
the following subdirs:
src/ (with the actual functions)
examples/ (with a few example scripts and datasets)
doc/ (with pdf or tex documentations files)
guihook/ (with xml descriptions of the GUI-callable functions)
Then, I'd upload the tarball to sourceforge. The user would
a) open gretl
b) issue the command (say) "library mgarch --install". This would download
the package from sourceforge and unpack it into a suitable subdirectory of
his local tree (say, /usr/local/share/gretl_packages/mgarch/). Of course,
there would be a GUI equivalent.
c) issue the command (say) "library mgarch". This would "include" all
the
files in /usr/local/share/gretl_packages/mgarch/src/ and create an
"mgarch" entry somewhere in gretl's GUI menu.
d) use the functions and complain about the bugs :-)
This seems doable, in a reasonable timespan, by someone with little prior
knowledge of gretl's internals and would be IMO a nice improvement in the
way 'outsiders' could contribute.
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti
11:05 a.m.
New subject: GSOC (was: Several things)
You know, Talha, people happen to have lives :-)
Sorry if I
sounded harsh. I was a bit frustrated with the lack of
replies in general.
On (1) to (5), I'm with Allin. While (1) and (2) are doable, (3)
is IMO not
worth attempting,
OK let's forget about it for now. But I do think that sooner
or later
we will need more stats distributions at least for the sake of
completeness.
... I don't find
(4) and (5) particularly exciting, so of course I'm not against them but
it's not something I'm eager to spend any time on.
I think (4) is something Google would like to support. I don't know
about (5) but, still, I can be the mentor for both of them and see if
anyone will be interested in doing them.
6)- Improving function packages management...
This sounds like
a nice and well thought out project.
So, all in all, does it sound good if we were to apply with (1), (2),
(4), (5), and (6)? Jack, is it OK to be assigned as the mentor for (1)
and (6)? Allin, is it OK being the mentor for (2)? I can be the
general coordinator and the mentor for (4) and (5) if it is OK with
everyone. I don't think being a mentor involves alot of time or work.
I am sure everyone will try their best to help a student in this email
list as well.
Any more volunteers? Any more project ideas? Any more comments?
Cheers
Talha
--
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
--
11:13 a.m.
New subject: GSOC (was: Several things)
On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, Talha Yalta wrote:
So, all in all, does it sound good if we were to apply with (1),
(2),
(4), (5), and (6)? Jack, is it OK to be assigned as the mentor for (1)
and (6)?
Fine by me, although I'm not very comfortable with the idea of five
projects going on at the same time. We're not Gnome or KDE; it looks to me
like a big committment. But I may be wrong.
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti
9:42 a.m.
New subject: Feature requests regarding gretl 's minimization algorithms
I have some feature requests regarding gretl's minimization algorithms,
which are useful for user-written functions:
As I understand it from the User's guide, gretl uses several numerical
optimization algorithms, e.g. the Frisch-Newton interior point solver and
the Barrodale-Roberts simplex algorithm for quantile esitmation, the
Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm for NLS estimation and the BFGS algorithm for
MLE.
Of these algorithms only the BFGS method is available for user-written
functions. Would it be hard to also make the other methods available for
user-writen functions, just as the BFGSmax method is avaialble? If not I
hope they could be made available.
Secondly, if it is not too much work, I would like to see the Nelder-Mead
numerical optimization algorithm implemented in gretl and available for
user-written functions.
Andreas
7 a.m.
New subject: Compiling gretl on Windows XP - some problems regarding the instructions in the README file
I am struggling with compiling gretl on Windows XP using Code::Blocks.
Some problems I have encountered regarding the information in the "README
for win32 build file":
1. The matfuncs.c file has several #include <libxslt/...> preprocessor
commands, but the README file does not mention that this library is
necessary to compile gretl on Windows
2. The xsltInternals.h file has the #include <libxml/dict.h> and #include
<libxml/xmlstring.h> preprocessor commands, but these files are not
included in the libxml library at
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/pub/gretl/winbuild/
Andreas
10:21 a.m.
New subject: Compiling gretl on Windows XP - some problems regarding the instructions in the README file
On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 andreas.rosenblad(a)ltv.se wrote:
I am struggling with compiling gretl on Windows XP using
Code::Blocks.
Thanks for working on this. It's about time that we got a proper
build process for Windows worked out. I'll take a good look at
this myself, but meantime here are some quick responses.
1. The matfuncs.c file has several #include <libxslt/...>
preprocessor
commands, but the README file does not mention that this library is
necessary to compile gretl on Windows
This is a case where there are some additional dependencies for
building the documentation: you don't need libxslt to build gretl
itself.
2. The xsltInternals.h file has the #include <libxml/dict.h>
and #include
<libxml/xmlstring.h> preprocessor commands, but these files are not
included in the libxml library at
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/pub/gretl/winbuild/
OK, I'll see about fixing that.
C:\gretl\extra\simple_client.c:24:31: gretl/libgretl.h: No such
file or directory
Line 24 reads #include <gretl/libgretl.h>
I can only find the libgretl.h file in the lib\src folder.
Shouldnt this line be changed to just #include "libgretl.h" or
am I doing something wrong?
"simple_client" is not part of gretl itself; it's a sample
program that is supposed to mimic a third party using libgretl.
So the idea is that when you're building simple_client, libgretl
is already installed on the local system, and pkg-config can pick
up the right path for the libgretl header files.
Secondly,
C:\gretl\gui2\about.c:22:19: build.h: No such file or directory
I cannot find any file named build.h in the current gretl
source, although I find a build.h file in an old source from
gretl 1.7.7.
build.h is a generated file, created by the perl script
builddate.pl. It could easily be written manually, e.g.
waverley:~/src/build$ cat build.h
#define BUILD_DATE "build date 2009-03-06\n"
Allin Cottrell
10:49 a.m.
New subject: Compiling gretl on Windows XP - some problems regarding the instructions in the README file
gretl-devel-bounces(a)lists.wfu.edu skrev 2009-03-06 16:21:54 :
On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 andreas.rosenblad(a)ltv.se wrote:
> I am struggling with compiling gretl on Windows XP using
Code::Blocks.
Thanks for working on this. It's about time that we got a
proper
build process for Windows worked out. I'll take a good look at
this myself, but meantime here are some quick responses.
It would be really good if there could be a Code::Blocks project file for
compiling gretl. I am struggling with creating one, but it feels like I am
stuck at the moment.
> 1. The matfuncs.c file has several #include <libxslt/...>
preprocessor
> commands, but the README file does not mention that this library is
> necessary to compile gretl on Windows
This is a case where there are some additional dependencies for
building the documentation: you don't need libxslt to build gretl
itself.
Then, what files are necessary to compile gretl, and which files are not
necessary?
> 2. The xsltInternals.h file has the #include
<libxml/dict.h> and
#include
> <libxml/xmlstring.h> preprocessor commands, but these
files are not
> included in the libxml library at
> http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/pub/gretl/winbuild/
OK, I'll see about fixing that.
> C:\gretl\extra\simple_client.c:24:31: gretl/libgretl.h: No such
> file or directory
> Line 24 reads #include <gretl/libgretl.h>
> I can only find the libgretl.h file in the lib\src folder.
> Shouldnt this line be changed to just #include "libgretl.h" or
> am I doing something wrong?
"simple_client" is not part of gretl itself; it's a
sample
program that is supposed to mimic a third party using libgretl.
So the idea is that when you're building simple_client, libgretl
is already installed on the local system, and pkg-config can pick
up the right path for the libgretl header files.
OK. As above, what files are really necessary to compile gretl, and which
files could be skipped?
Andreas
> Secondly,
> C:\gretl\gui2\about.c:22:19: build.h: No such file or directory
> I cannot find any file named build.h in the current gretl
> source, although I find a build.h file in an old source from
> gretl 1.7.7.
build.h is a generated file, created by the perl script
builddate.pl. It could easily be written manually, e.g.
waverley:~/src/build$ cat build.h
#define BUILD_DATE "build date 2009-03-06\n"
Allin Cottrell
_______________________________________________
Gretl-devel mailing list
Gretl-devel(a)lists.wfu.edu
http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-devel
4:26 p.m.
New subject: Compiling gretl on Windows XP - some problems regarding the instructions in the README file
On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 andreas.rosenblad(a)ltv.se wrote:
Then, what files are necessary to compile gretl, and which files are
not
necessary?
The necessary files are the ones referenced in win32/Makefile.
I'm in the process of trying to construct a "native" Windows
version of this file.
Allin.
2:17 p.m.
gretl-devel-bounces(a)lists.wfu.edu skrev 2009-02-05 22:21:57 :
On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Talha Yalta wrote:
> 4)- How about implementing or improving some simple statistical
> functionality? Simple things are useful especially in a
> classroom environment but their implementation can be delayed or
> neglected because the resources are limited. How about improving
> ANOVA for example?
I expect Andreas Rosenblad may have some suggestions on that
topic.
Well, as soon as I have figured out how to compile gretl on code::blocks
and started to study the code, I will start to add all basic statistical
functionality (such as e.g. ANOVA) to make gretl a fully featured
statistical software (not just an econometrics package). Then gretl may
change the name to General Statistics, Econometrics and Time Series
Laboratory, or just gretl for short. :-)
Andreas
5732
days inactive
5767
days old
19 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Allin Cottrell -
andreas.rosenblad＠ltv.se -
Henrique -
Mariusz Doszyń -
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti -
Talha Yalta