4 ms·

"You will use matlab and CVX" Not sure what CVX is, but if Octave isn't sufficient, pretty much a non-starter.

by platz 13y ago

eaurouge 13y ago
Mathworks now give out student licenses for MOOCs. At least they did for some Udacity courses I took earlier this year.
- Bootvis 13y ago
  And they do for this course, see the bottom of the page. If you only want to use free software this is a problem, but if you want to learn this is great!
- ics 13y ago
  Same for MIT2.01x I think. It's good product placement for them but definitely makes the forums less interesting than other courses where you have people working together to demonstrate how to use some program/language to solve problems in the course.
dvdt 13y ago
Cvx is basically a convex solver that is called from matlab. Boyd wrote it. I'm not sure how easy it would be to divorce it from matlab, but there is a lot of existing instructional material built off of cvx, including examples in Boyd's book on convex optimization. If you think you might be interested in this topic, it's worthwhile getting a matlab license. A lot of published academic code in this field is implemented with cvx.
clintonc 13y ago
From the web page: Do we need to purchase a Matlab license to take this course? You will be able to use Matlab under a special license provided to you as a course participant to use for the CVX101 course. This is a limited license for the duration of the course and is intended to be used only for course work and not for commercial purposes. Alternatively, you may choose to access Matlab via a web interface if you prefer not to install Matlab on your computer.
rawland 13y ago
It's incredible how many of my colleagues work with Matlab. Many enjoy the high integration of the environment. Thus it's somehow predestined for prototyping. I'm not sure if Octave can compete, considering the GUI features. However, python, especially ipython, is a real alternative to me. In fact, I use ipython for my prototyping which evolves into Fortran for the following implementation on the high performance cluster late on. As one of the other commenters mentioned, Boyd or -- more likely -- his PhD/u/grads wrote CVX, so I'm not sure how much this course allows you to implement and play with ideas presented using python instead of Matlab.

"You will use matlab and CVX" Not sure what CVX is, but if Octave isn't sufficient, pretty much a non-starter.

by platz 13y ago

"You will use matlab and CVX" Not sure what CVX is, but if Octave isn't sufficient, pretty much a non-starter.

eaurouge 13y ago

Mathworks now give out student licenses for MOOCs. At least they did for some Udacity courses I took earlier this year.

Bootvis 13y ago
And they do for this course, see the bottom of the page. If you only want to use free software this is a problem, but if you want to learn this is great!
ics 13y ago
Same for MIT2.01x I think. It's good product placement for them but definitely makes the forums less interesting than other courses where you have people working together to demonstrate how to use some program/language to solve problems in the course.

dvdt 13y ago

Cvx is basically a convex solver that is called from matlab. Boyd wrote it. I'm not sure how easy it would be to divorce it from matlab, but there is a lot of existing instructional material built off of cvx, including examples in Boyd's book on convex optimization. If you think you might be interested in this topic, it's worthwhile getting a matlab license. A lot of published academic code in this field is implemented with cvx.

clintonc 13y ago

From the web page: Do we need to purchase a Matlab license to take this course? You will be able to use Matlab under a special license provided to you as a course participant to use for the CVX101 course. This is a limited license for the duration of the course and is intended to be used only for course work and not for commercial purposes. Alternatively, you may choose to access Matlab via a web interface if you prefer not to install Matlab on your computer.

rawland 13y ago

It's incredible how many of my colleagues work with Matlab. Many enjoy the high integration of the environment. Thus it's somehow predestined for prototyping. I'm not sure if Octave can compete, considering the GUI features. However, python, especially ipython, is a real alternative to me. In fact, I use ipython for my prototyping which evolves into Fortran for the following implementation on the high performance cluster late on. As one of the other commenters mentioned, Boyd or -- more likely -- his PhD/u/grads wrote CVX, so I'm not sure how much this course allows you to implement and play with ideas presented using python instead of Matlab.