deprecated functions

[Jason Riedy]

And Jaroslav Hajek writes:
> But it would break backward and Matlab compatibility in a fairly
> invasive way (infinitely more than the recently discussed NaN issues),
> so I think a wide agreement is really necessary here.

I don't have a Matlab(TM) license and haven't used it in quite
some time, so I can't verify that...  I'm shocked but not too
surprised given their market moves.

However, such compatibility would render Octave far less useful
to me.  I use Octave for executable code that can be published
directly[1].  Having to obscure my code for a system (Matlab(TM))
that I don't use and have no intention of using would be awful.

Jason

Footnotes: 
[1]  For example, see LAPACK Working Note 203 (to appear in SISC).