I would be incredibly happy if we were taught in Python or anything other than the hideous monster that is Matlab on my MSc course. After using Ruby and Python it's rather painful to use such a clunky environment.
One difficulty with Python for teaching is that it is rather complex to get students set up and running with python+ipython+numpy+scipy+a compiler+... There are so many combinations, every student has a different version of a different operating system with different other crap installed. Matlab is matlab is matlab. Sage seems to come reasonably close as an alternative, though in practice there are often still issues with setup. (Maybe minor enough that the other advantages of python outweigh...)
The other advantage of matlab is that it is more friendly to non-programmers. There are a lot of people that get lots of real things done in matlab due to all the semi-idiotic design features that annoy serious programmers. (Monolithic namespace, "everything is a matrix", one function per file, etc.) The huge advantage of "copy on write" is that you don't even have to really understand the concept of "different copies of the same data". That's a big hurdle coming to python-- a hurdle you might not want to get over if you don't care about programming, and just want to solve your problem.
Yes, if you know what program you want to write then in Python (+ NumPy, Matplotlib, et al) vs Matlab, Python wins but if you are a) exploring a problem space speculatively and b) skilled in your knowledge domain but producing a piece of software is not your final goal, then Matlab wins hands down. It doesn't try to be a general-purpose programming language, it is honed over years to do exactly what control engineers want to do day-to-day.
It's like Python is a better programming environment than Excel too, but spreadsheets aren't going away anytime soon (it remains to be seen whether Python + OOo wins over the long term)
Mathworks could do a lot worse than bolt on an optional Python front-end. What people pay for Matlab for is the toolboxes, really.
As a controls engineer, I agree. I've been trying to learn/switch to python after years of Matlab, but the installation effort, programming environment and lack of controls tools compared to Matlab have hindered me.
Actually if anyone has any suggestions to address those issues, I'd appreciate it.
Installing sage (http://www.sagemath.org/) addresses the installation effort pretty well. You get a giant binary of everything bundled together and working. It addresses the programming environment to some degres (it gives you a "notebook" similar to Mathematica). I used to be a hardcore matlab guy, now I find some tasks are easier in python.
I have toyed with R, and I think it's great. I love the data-focus of the language, and the capabilities of ggplot (for which there does not seem to be an equal to in Python). But to be honest as a controls guy, and not a software guy, learning new languages is not a trivial task for me. Python seems to meet both my computational and application aspirations.
I am curious as to why you would hate matlab so much other than the clunkyness. EDIT: And of course cost/openness
Matlab works very well for many disciplines and the shear amount of documentation make it very easy to use for people who aren't really programmers. My main peeve with matlab is that to write a function it is required to make a separate file however most problems that are solved with matlab don't really need functions in the first place.
SciPy/NumPy and matplotlib can be nice to use but if I need to get an engineering problem done quickly I can find functions that I need much quicker in matlab and the matrix as the central object is very helpful.
Yes, the closed system is a big thing. Anything interesting I may create will have to be re-written in another language if I want to extend/share with others. While it's not reasonable to use something like c to test out (computer vision in this case) algorithms in practical classes, Python is both simple and open.
The problem of having many possible combinations as mentioned by lliiffee doesn't seem like much of a big deal. Surely a faculty could just specify their recommended setup?
> My main peeve with matlab is that to write a function it
> is required to make a separate file however most problems
> that are solved with matlab don't really need functions
> in the first place.
That's just where the madness begins! My current pet peeve is that you can't index the result of a function directly:
x = 10:-1:1;
a = sort(x)(1:5); % illegal!
tmp = sort(x); % depressing :(
a = tmp(1:5);
f = @(x,i)x(i); % a little better
a = f(sort(x),1:5);
Every release gets a bit better, but there are still a lot of strange historical limitations.
You can define a second function in a file, with the constraint that it can only be used by the main function (I think). The following could happily go in one file named foo.m:
My comment exactly. Having worked with Matlab professionally, how it survives when there's any plausible alternative is astounding. Well, not really, Matlab is pathological as a development environment but somehow does a good job of facilitating the back-of-an-envelop-magic of the physicists.
It's the crystal meth of numeric programming - a quick rush followed by a giant crash.
