3 ms·

I'm curious why you consider Matlab not an option to distribute software widely? They have the Matlab Compiler that allows you produce executables that work wit

by kejaed 11y ago

I'm curious why you consider Matlab not an option to distribute software widely? They have the Matlab Compiler that allows you produce executables that work with the freely downloadable Matlab Compiler Runtime. I know of at least one software product, Imatest, that is produced and distributed this way. http://www.mathworks.com/products/compiler/ http://www.mathworks.com/products/compiler/ http://www.imatest.com http://www.imatest.com

vegabook 11y ago
I am given to understand that some functionality is not compilable or redistributable. I work in a fairly specialized field (fixed income term structure optimization) and this page is not encouraging (see "cannot be compiled" column): http://uk.mathworks.com/products/compiler/supported/compiler_support.html http://uk.mathworks.com/products/compiler/supported/compiler... Also, finance is a field ripe for disruption, and if you're going to disrupt, you probably don't want to be doing it by relying on an expensive piece of highly proprietary technology, is my view.
- kejaed 11y ago
  Ah yes, great point. I suppose that ties into the whole trade off one has in using Matlab in the first place: locking in to a proprietary commerical product to spend more time on problem-space work and less on managing memory and I/O etc. You get to pay up front to get working on your problem more quickly, and you pay again later on with a potential lack of flexibility. I have been burned by such a lock in before in a personal project where the commerical make an app easily SDK was discontinued and left in the dust with all the developers left holding their collective unupdateabale apps in their hands.
cschmidt 11y ago
They have carefully left out certain key capabilities in the Matlab compiler, that renders it not very useful for some applications. So it is cool, but check the list of compilable functions.

by kejaed 11y ago

vegabook 11y ago

I am given to understand that some functionality is not compilable or redistributable. I work in a fairly specialized field (fixed income term structure optimization) and this page is not encouraging (see "cannot be compiled" column): http://uk.mathworks.com/products/compiler/supported/compiler_support.html http://uk.mathworks.com/products/compiler/supported/compiler... Also, finance is a field ripe for disruption, and if you're going to disrupt, you probably don't want to be doing it by relying on an expensive piece of highly proprietary technology, is my view.

kejaed 11y ago
Ah yes, great point. I suppose that ties into the whole trade off one has in using Matlab in the first place: locking in to a proprietary commerical product to spend more time on problem-space work and less on managing memory and I/O etc. You get to pay up front to get working on your problem more quickly, and you pay again later on with a potential lack of flexibility. I have been burned by such a lock in before in a personal project where the commerical make an app easily SDK was discontinued and left in the dust with all the developers left holding their collective unupdateabale apps in their hands.

cschmidt 11y ago

They have carefully left out certain key capabilities in the Matlab compiler, that renders it not very useful for some applications. So it is cool, but check the list of compilable functions.