Matlab does have a lot of great features like ... clean syntax Are we talking about the same Matlab? The one where you get one function per file? Can someone

Matlab does have a lot of great features like ... clean syntax Are we talking about the same Matlab? The one where you get one function per file? Can someone in the know add more detail, i.e., is any of this due to proprietary algorithms, or is this a question of implementation and tuning? Why is R faster in a few cases?