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I guess Mathworks is pushing very very hard to get Matlab into Universities at the teacuing level, with campus licenses, which honestly for students are great (

I guess Mathworks is pushing very very hard to get Matlab into Universities at the teacuing level, with campus licenses, which honestly for students are great (until they stop being students and realize they have been sucked into an abyss of cost). It is really costly for a dept. to switch to Julia, say, as you would need all your colleagues (I teach applied maths and use matlab/octave) to make the switch lest you annoy the students (because ones learn one thing, others other).

actinium226 4y ago
It's also difficult to learn the new paradigm of a language, especially since MATLAB is so tightly coupled with the IDE and every other programming languages is usually run on the command line. You can use an IDE for those languages, but it usually requires some setup and sometimes that breaks. I recently found Spyder IDE for Python which feels a lot like MATLAB. Despite my hate for MATLAB, I did at times appreciate the layout of the IDE and the way variables are still available after running a script. Spyder fortunately has a similar interface, except even better since you can restart the interpreter without restarting the IDE. I highly recommend it as a MATLAB replacement!
cycomanic 4y ago
I agree with you, but times are changing. In my experience quite a few departments are moving to python now. This is largely driven by new students who choose or push for python based subjects, because of the much broader applicability. Typically that's a slowish process, starting at the first year level and transitioning to later levels. It's not like it hasn't been done before, when I was a student we would be taught in c or java.
eggy 4y ago
Autodesk did the same with AutoCAD with student licenses, and they unofficially allowed the pirating and use of AutoCAD knowing it would then win market share when people went to work for a company that needed to secure licenses.
DrNosferatu 4y ago
Indeed, despite the tale in university that Matalab is what “the industry uses”, never found an established business willing to pay the license fee. The single only shop using Matlab I encountered was venture capital funded. But truth be said, nothing so far quite managed to replicate Matlab syntax succinctness and ease - even if it’s a (unstated?) design goal of Julia.

actinium226 4y ago

It's also difficult to learn the new paradigm of a language, especially since MATLAB is so tightly coupled with the IDE and every other programming languages is usually run on the command line. You can use an IDE for those languages, but it usually requires some setup and sometimes that breaks. I recently found Spyder IDE for Python which feels a lot like MATLAB. Despite my hate for MATLAB, I did at times appreciate the layout of the IDE and the way variables are still available after running a script. Spyder fortunately has a similar interface, except even better since you can restart the interpreter without restarting the IDE. I highly recommend it as a MATLAB replacement!

cycomanic 4y ago

I agree with you, but times are changing. In my experience quite a few departments are moving to python now. This is largely driven by new students who choose or push for python based subjects, because of the much broader applicability. Typically that's a slowish process, starting at the first year level and transitioning to later levels. It's not like it hasn't been done before, when I was a student we would be taught in c or java.

eggy 4y ago

Autodesk did the same with AutoCAD with student licenses, and they unofficially allowed the pirating and use of AutoCAD knowing it would then win market share when people went to work for a company that needed to secure licenses.

DrNosferatu 4y ago

Indeed, despite the tale in university that Matalab is what “the industry uses”, never found an established business willing to pay the license fee. The single only shop using Matlab I encountered was venture capital funded. But truth be said, nothing so far quite managed to replicate Matlab syntax succinctness and ease - even if it’s a (unstated?) design goal of Julia.