13 karma · joined May 7, 2012
Its been a while since I've worked with Octave toolboxes but it would be great if they were on par with Matlab.
Performance is less of an issue with prototyping than production systems and Matlab has a path to get to compiled C/C++ (Java and perhaps other?) Is there Octave support for generating reasonably performant C++ or Java?
Many of these meetings are set up to allow people to talk about their stuff for a few minutes. This is a great way to "break out of your shell" and gives you invaluable skills in pitching and communicating what you are working on.
Get your confidence up to participate and talk about some coding you are doing. You might find someone who shares your interest to collaborate with.
Beware of service providers unless you are looking to meet them. Attorneys, head hunters, recruiters, and other non-developers also tend to hang around these meetings to get closer to --- you the in-demand developer!
Self taught programmers can write well but may be missing some of the nuance for why things are done one way over another or maybe be missing some tricks that save a lot of time. These limitations can be overcome by somebody committed to writing good quality code.
If you are interested we can make something work for your situation.