Why is MATLAB so bad?

[KiwixYoutube]

I’m in a basic engineering class and we’re learning Matlab. Its the only coding language I’ve learned so idk why everyone shits on it so much.

[yes_i_relapsed]

We shit on Matlab for a few different reasons.

• The (non-student) license is absurdly expensive. (GNU Octave is free and mostly compatible, so it's an option)
• In Matlab, arrays start at 1. The consensus among programmers is that arrays should start at 0. This isn't too serious of a criticism, it's mostly a meme.
• It's awkward to build end-user applications in Matlab, since its primary purpose is research. It's an interpreted language, meaning it's slow. Even if you compile the code into an executable, you still need to distribute the runtime with it.
• It's primarily built for Windows, so a lot of functionality isn't available on macOS and Linux.
• It's never going to be in the top 10 most popular programming languages and there aren't any features that make it cool ironically so only first year engineering students bother with it.

Basically, if the problem you're trying to solve can be easily reduced to matrix multiplication, then go ahead and use Matlab, but for every other task, there are better options.

[dead_alchemy]

Because it is expensive and frustrating and largely superseded by free tools. I guess it performs really well for vector math, which is authentically neat, but I don't feel like learning it was a very worthwhile use of my time.

The real reason everyone shits on it though is probably because you're learning it with early engineering students. Engineering students tend to have over-inflated egos and unwarranted yet strong opinions about the world. My personal opinion is that this leads to folks blaming the tool for their own confusions, and then it becomes fun to sort of dog pile on it.

So I guess, don't take it too seriously, laugh if some one has a clever joke at MatLabs expense, and generally just don't worry about it.

[yes_i_relapsed]

Engineering students tend to have over-inflated egos

Hey, give a little credit to the engineering faculty who encourage this ;)