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In an engineering setting, MatLab has more mindshare, but that may be changing. The related product Simulink is not uncommon in larger engineering firms also.

In an engineering setting, MatLab has more mindshare, but that may be changing. The related product Simulink is not uncommon in larger engineering firms also. Back in the day, the community around MatLab was quite large, but likely has declined in size in the last few years with the rise of Python in this area.

dtech 8y ago
> In an engineering setting, MatLab has more mindshare, but that may be changing. This has definitely been changing for a while. All engineering studies of my old university except for computer science and mathematics have switched from Java+Matlab to Python over the last years. I've already seen this have an effect on workplaces, where new students prefer to use Python and are generally allowed to.
- speedplane 8y ago
  > All engineering studies of my old university except for computer science and mathematics have switched from Java+Matlab to Python over the last years I'd love to witness this. I used Matlab heavily as an engineering student, and now mostly work in Python. Python is definitely better for complex programming, but where the program is simple and the math is hard, Matlab seems like a great tool. I'm curious what tools/libraries python users now use that brings Python up to the usability of matlab?
  - dtech 8y ago
    > I'm curious what tools/libraries python users now use that brings Python up to the usability of matlab? 95% SciPy, NumPy and Spyder. I'm sure the massive savings on license costs also make it attractive.
    - speedplane 8y ago
      > I'm sure the massive savings on license costs also make it attractive. I remember shelling out $60 for a true license of Matlab while in college. I remember thinking, "well you're an engineer now, and this cost is part of that", even thugh it felt like a small fortune. But official licensed version required you to insert the CD into the computer every time you used it, so I gave up a got the pirated version instead.
      - 4thaccount 8y ago
        Lol $60 If you get the commercial version out of college it is thousands of dollars for base and thousands for each "toolbox". Want to have database functionality? Thousands of dollars, optimization functions? Thousands of dollars. That might be worth it for national labs that like how the native IDE, plotting, GUI, widgets, ability to put into commercial projects (they've secured licensing for the math solvers for you)...etc. It is all better integrated than Python even with it's nice Spyder IDE.
nrclark 8y ago
Out of curiosity, do you know of a Simulink equivalent that works with Octave? Or anything close?
- satish-setty 8y ago
  Not Octave, but the other Matlab-clone Scilab has a package called Xcos which is similar to Simulink.
  - 4thaccount 8y ago
    Octave strives to be 1:1 with Matlab, while Scilab aims to be close to 1:1. A subtle distinction there :)
ryl00 8y ago
"Not uncommon" is an understatement. In some workplaces, Simulink is as pervasive and core to engineering as Excel is to the business world in general.

dtech 8y ago

> In an engineering setting, MatLab has more mindshare, but that may be changing. This has definitely been changing for a while. All engineering studies of my old university except for computer science and mathematics have switched from Java+Matlab to Python over the last years. I've already seen this have an effect on workplaces, where new students prefer to use Python and are generally allowed to.

speedplane 8y ago
> All engineering studies of my old university except for computer science and mathematics have switched from Java+Matlab to Python over the last years I'd love to witness this. I used Matlab heavily as an engineering student, and now mostly work in Python. Python is definitely better for complex programming, but where the program is simple and the math is hard, Matlab seems like a great tool. I'm curious what tools/libraries python users now use that brings Python up to the usability of matlab?
- dtech 8y ago
  > I'm curious what tools/libraries python users now use that brings Python up to the usability of matlab? 95% SciPy, NumPy and Spyder. I'm sure the massive savings on license costs also make it attractive.
  - speedplane 8y ago
    > I'm sure the massive savings on license costs also make it attractive. I remember shelling out $60 for a true license of Matlab while in college. I remember thinking, "well you're an engineer now, and this cost is part of that", even thugh it felt like a small fortune. But official licensed version required you to insert the CD into the computer every time you used it, so I gave up a got the pirated version instead.
    - 4thaccount 8y ago
      Lol $60 If you get the commercial version out of college it is thousands of dollars for base and thousands for each "toolbox". Want to have database functionality? Thousands of dollars, optimization functions? Thousands of dollars. That might be worth it for national labs that like how the native IDE, plotting, GUI, widgets, ability to put into commercial projects (they've secured licensing for the math solvers for you)...etc. It is all better integrated than Python even with it's nice Spyder IDE.

nrclark 8y ago

Out of curiosity, do you know of a Simulink equivalent that works with Octave? Or anything close?

satish-setty 8y ago
Not Octave, but the other Matlab-clone Scilab has a package called Xcos which is similar to Simulink.
- 4thaccount 8y ago
  Octave strives to be 1:1 with Matlab, while Scilab aims to be close to 1:1. A subtle distinction there :)

ryl00 8y ago

"Not uncommon" is an understatement. In some workplaces, Simulink is as pervasive and core to engineering as Excel is to the business world in general.