The only reason I can see to use Matlab is that you have invested heavily in it in the past. If not, I'd always use python instead. I claim it's not less "tuned

The only reason I can see to use Matlab is that you have invested heavily in it in the past. If not, I'd always use python instead. I claim it's not less "tuned for numerics" (with numpy) than Matlab. If you really need a Matlab like IDE, you should either give Spyder² [1] (I don't use it myself, but I know some Matlab-switchers that are quite happy with it) or IPython notebook a try. In my oppinion, the only thing Matlab has going for it are commercial extensions and (often exclusive) hardware support (and I don't mean computers). [1] http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/ http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/