Learn

GNU Octave was started in 1988 to teach undergrad numerical methods. Today it's a full open-source MATLAB alternative — with the same syntax, mostly compatible toolboxes, and a thriving community.

disp("Hello, Octave!")

• disp(x) writes x followed by a newline
• printf("format", args) for C-style formatted output
• Comments use % or # (both work)
• Statements end with newline; suppress output (when assigning) with trailing ;
• Strings can use single or double quotes — both behave the same way for plain ASCII

Reading stdin: input("") reads a value from stdin. With second arg "s" it reads as a string:

n = input("")           % reads as a number
line = input("", "s")   % reads as a string