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From: "Paul Mennen" <nospam@mennen.org>
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.matlab
Subject: Re: Submission of p-code
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:36:02 +0000 (UTC)
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> There are really good arguments on both 
> sides from both a philosophical and a tactical level.
> Helen Chen

I haven't seen any good arguments on this thread or
elsewhere on why p-code should be banned from the File
Exchange. Doug makes some good points on why he doesn't want
to use downloaded p-code but even he admits that such code
may be beneficial to others in the Matlab community.

The most appropriate format for the vast majority of the
File Exchange files is certainly .m and most submissions
would use that format regardless of whether .p code was
allowed. For the few submissions where .p code is more
appropriate, what is the harm in allowing it? Each user has
the option of downloading it or not.

If there isn't a good reason for the policy, wouldn't it
make more sense to re-evaluate the policy instead of
scowering the file exchange to expunge files that users may
find useful? Also it appears not everyone at TMW has the
same opinion. The TMW plt reviewer clearly knew it was a .p
file yet still thought it merited the POW distinction (pick
of the week).

> That said, it is our policy at MATLAB Central that all p-
> code published must have the supporting m-files supplied. 

That's inconsistent at best. It makes no sense to submit
both p-code and m-code. (The p-code is quite easily
generated from the m-code). The reason for p-code's
existence as it was explained to me was to allow m-code to
run without revealing the source. So what is the advantage
of distributing p-code along with the source that generates it?

~Paul