| Free Software offers people the freedom to share or change the software. By accessing the source code, people can adapt or modify the software to meet their special needs. This facilitates research, education and business. However, adding special purpose functions to Free Software is still a big challenge for developers. Though some software packages provide functions that have potential utility for certain needs, these functions might not be directly used or are very difficult to use, especially by students.; This thesis aimed to provide developers with some feasible approaches to assisting novice users. It attempts to add forecasting functionality and easy-to-use user interface to different types of software packages, such as R and Scilab. Several example interfaces are implemented in multiple programming languages (such as Perl, JavaScript and HTML) on the Windows and Linux platforms. We conducted analyses on the attempts made and the lessons learned in these implementations. This provides prototypes and caveats for further efforts, which may have relevance to effectively exploiting Free Software, especially for online teaching. |
