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.

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.