Agreed it is mostly used interactively in the IDE. FWIW one can compile into p-code (=underlying virtual machine), package the p-code files of the application w

Agreed it is mostly used interactively in the IDE. FWIW one can compile into p-code (=underlying virtual machine), package the p-code files of the application with the matlab standalone engine+libraries (MCR), and deploy using standard shell tools (e.g make with Makefile).