It is possible (for example, commercial Macsyma does this...)
to have an alternative parser that accepts Matlab syntax.
In fact, I think I wrote a parser in Lisp for Matlab, years ago.
There is a funny part of Matlab, or at least it was then, that the meaning
of f(x) could be a function call or an array reference. It was a
function call
if there was a file named f.m in a certain directory.
That meant you could not really compile Matlab independent of some
user's file system.
But anyway, if there is an interest in R or Octave or something similar
as an alternative
top-level language, find an ambitious undergraduate who has taken a
compiler course
and ask him/her to just write another parser.
RJF
Raymond Toy wrote:
> Stavros Macrakis wrote:
>
>> I have been using the R system lately for a variety of analyses, and
>> it builds a lot of functionality into subscripting.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> [snip examples]
>
>> Well, enough for now. Discussion?
>>
>
> I'm not familiar with R, but I have used Matlab's subscripting. It's
> really quite handy. (But sometimes makes for really obfuscated code.)
> Based on your description, it seems quite similar to R.
>
> One thing that would be nice is to have a simple syntax for Matlab's
> a:b:s which generates an vector starting at a and ending at b with a
> step of s.
>
> I know we can use makelist for that, but it's so much typing for
> something that would be used a lot. :-)
>
> Ray
>
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