GNU Octave 3.8.2

Known as a high level interpreted language, GNU Octave is intended for numerical computations while providing capabilities for the numerical solutions of linear and nonlinear calculations, while also being used to perform other numerical calculations.

This software is able to provide you with extensive graphical capabilities for data visualization and manipulation. Normally used through it's command line interface, GNU Octave can be used to write non-interactive programs. It's language is pretty similar to the well known Matlab, so most programs can easily be ported over. GNU Octave is free and is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

This software first started back in 1988 and was first intended to be used for a chemical reactor design course. The initial development GNU Octave was started by John W. Eaton back in 1992, and the first alpha was released in January of 1993. Finally, the official release was out in Februrary of 1994. Today, version 3 of GNU Octave is available was was originally released on December 21, 2007.

GNU Octave is software that was written in C++ using the C++ standard library. It uses an interpreter to execute the Octave scripting language while also being extensible using dynamically loadable modules. The interpreter work with gnuplot and Grace software to enable the ability to create plots, charts, graphs, while being able to print and save them. The newest versions, 3.8.0 and later, include a GUI (Graphical User Interface) in addition to it's traditional command line interface. While, as of the current version a GUI may be available, it is currently not the default interface for the software. It is stated by the developer that in the official release of version 4, the GUI will be the official default interface for GNU Octave.