opinion about matlab

some of our instructors define matlab as it is just like a calculator and always try to discourage for using matlab for our post graduation project. so what is your opinion about this view.so please reply as soon as possible so that we can convey the msg to our instructors.

Answer 1

[Paulo Silva]

ekta the opinion of your instructors is very sad, they don't know what they talk about or they might be using some concurrent product.

MATLAB is much more than just a calculator, it's a tool that any engineer can use to model systems, to learn and test, there's a toolbox for almost every field of investigation, there's also Simulink...

MATLAB is the best program regarding documentation, tutorials, support online, etc.

MATLAB is also very easy and fun to use, you can also make your own functions that suits best your needs.

Answer 2

[PA00]

Looks like your professors (with all due respect) live in the dark ages. The answer about matlab being a mere calculator represents 2 important points in my opinion. 1) They never used matlab and don't know what it can do and 2) Maybe they fear what they don't understand. In my opinion matlab today is more than a programming language and goes far more then what a calculator can do, for what your professors said i even thought they are confusing matlab with mathematica wich also does a little bit more then a calculator. Anyways matlab as come a long way since being just a matrix laboratory and i guess it has grown into a powerfull scientific and developing tool/platform wich at least should not desregarded specially now when you can extend even more matlab with there specialized tool boxes. Just surf matlab site for their products and aplications and see some video tutorials, your will soon see matlab is far more than a calculator.

Answer 3

[Jan]

MATLAB is very efficient for rapid prototyping. E.g. creating something like this can be done very fast:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fx_files/32084/2/spherium.jpg

It would be really hard to try this in C++, especially if you want to share the code with another lab, which uses the Intel compiler instead of GCC.

MATLAB programs do not run fast. A handmade Runge-Kutta ODE45 integrator in FORTRAN77 can be 10 times faster. Therefore it will calculate the values in 2 minute, instead of 20. But starting MATLAB's ODE45 takes just some minutes, while programming and testing your own integrator, or including a function from the NAG libs and creating a visualization of the results in GnuPlot will need more than the 18 minutes saved for the computing time.

MATLAB is an efficient tool to solve scientific problems. The only hard limitation is the weak support of GUIs. E.g. UITrees and UITables are very rudimental only. But for scientific use it often does not matter that the GUIs looks like the late 90'th.

What software does your professor prefer?

Answer 4

[Daniel Shub]

MATLAB is a tool. Like all tools, it is good for some things and really rubbish at other things. Even if MATLAB was just like a calculator, which I would say is not a good description, calculators are useful. Without knowing something about your project and your skills, it is hard to guess if MATLAB or a calculator is a reasonable tool. If your instructors do not think MATLAB is a reasonable tool for your project, they might be right.

Answer 5

[Oleg Komarov]

Describing MATLAB as a mere tool is just too unfair. It is an environment and a programming language. You can virtually do anything with it.

The limitation of MATLAB being also a programming language is that very specific softwares could have embedded more push-button functionalities than MATLAB has but this doesn't impede you to code them yourself and include them in your project.