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> Matlab is usually only ~$20 for an engineering student Guess what, apparently the first hit is not always free. There are people posting in this thread who h

> Matlab is usually only ~$20 for an engineering student Guess what, apparently the first hit is not always free. There are people posting in this thread who have to pay as much as 20k per year for a fully licensed Matlab.

4thaccount 8y ago
1.) I'm not sure why you appear to be taking an aggressive tone :) 2.) I've posted several comments on here including one showing that the cost can be up to $20k, so I'm well aware of that fact, but it is irrelevant to the above comment as the $20k is for working professionals and not poor engineering students where the cost is indeed ~$20 as I've paid it. Note that $20k is insane by some standards, but engineering software frequently gets much much higher than that. Yearly licenses in the 0.5 million range are common in my industry, so $20k is not considered unreasonable based on cost alone. It is unreasonable to me when they have free alternatives. 3.) I have said multiple times on here that I prefer Python and Julia as they are deeper and don't cost an arm and a leg. However, my above point still stands that Matlab isn't a bad solution for a student. There is some lock-in of course, but it isn't too bad to migrate away after you graduate and can no longer get the student rate.
kxyvr 8y ago
There was a little bit more information about that above. I'm a professional and my initial cost was around $2k and my yearly cost is around $400. I don't have to pay the yearly, but I like the updates and I like getting a response when something breaks and I'm on a tight deadline. I can't stress enough that what you buy with MATLAB is license coverage. Octave and Julia hook into many of the exact same libraries, but they have not negotiated a commercial license for things like linear system solvers. That means that distributed binaries may be subject to things like the GPL. If that's what you want, great. I like the GPL for a certain kind of software delivered to a certain kind of clientele. However, it's a nonstarter for most of my clients, so they buy MATLAB.
- 4thaccount 8y ago
  That's a pretty good and useful point. I don't sell software (just use what I write), so I'm not worried about encrypted binaries at the moment. If I was actually selling software though I probably would be. The GPL has always been a double-edged sword to me. Sure it is nice and free as in beer and freedom, but it can also essentially mean that it is a complete no go.

4thaccount 8y ago

1.) I'm not sure why you appear to be taking an aggressive tone :) 2.) I've posted several comments on here including one showing that the cost can be up to $20k, so I'm well aware of that fact, but it is irrelevant to the above comment as the $20k is for working professionals and not poor engineering students where the cost is indeed ~$20 as I've paid it. Note that $20k is insane by some standards, but engineering software frequently gets much much higher than that. Yearly licenses in the 0.5 million range are common in my industry, so $20k is not considered unreasonable based on cost alone. It is unreasonable to me when they have free alternatives. 3.) I have said multiple times on here that I prefer Python and Julia as they are deeper and don't cost an arm and a leg. However, my above point still stands that Matlab isn't a bad solution for a student. There is some lock-in of course, but it isn't too bad to migrate away after you graduate and can no longer get the student rate.

kxyvr 8y ago

There was a little bit more information about that above. I'm a professional and my initial cost was around $2k and my yearly cost is around $400. I don't have to pay the yearly, but I like the updates and I like getting a response when something breaks and I'm on a tight deadline. I can't stress enough that what you buy with MATLAB is license coverage. Octave and Julia hook into many of the exact same libraries, but they have not negotiated a commercial license for things like linear system solvers. That means that distributed binaries may be subject to things like the GPL. If that's what you want, great. I like the GPL for a certain kind of software delivered to a certain kind of clientele. However, it's a nonstarter for most of my clients, so they buy MATLAB.

4thaccount 8y ago
That's a pretty good and useful point. I don't sell software (just use what I write), so I'm not worried about encrypted binaries at the moment. If I was actually selling software though I probably would be. The GPL has always been a double-edged sword to me. Sure it is nice and free as in beer and freedom, but it can also essentially mean that it is a complete no go.