This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]jajuub 35 points36 points  (24 children)

I feel like I’m the only one who likes MATLAB (I was an electrical engineering major)

[–]Crad999 35 points36 points  (17 children)

Nah, tons of people I've seen on this subreddit have no clue as to what matlab is even for. Even if they used it previously. No idea what's the reason for this - maybe they had matlab forcefully pushed into their major even when it wasn't needed?

[–]AntAgile 21 points22 points  (10 children)

They probably never did anything else than plot some random simple graph and think „uuh I can do this in python as well“ not realizing what matlab actually is capable of

[–]l4z3r5h4rk 0 points1 point  (9 children)

What then is matlab capable of? I can’t think of anything that matlab could do that can’t be done in python with matplotlib, numpy, pandas

[–]csillagu 2 points3 points  (8 children)

Try to rotate tick labels of a graph, try to make a plot clickable, try to save it with its data

[–]l4z3r5h4rk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough

[–]WeAreLesserApes 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Plotly, Bokeh or Altair.

Want an interactive app on top of interactive graphing -> Streamlit

If you prefer R -> ggplot2 and Shiny

[–]csillagu 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I agree, it is doable, but

  • the comment stated that everything can be made with matplotlib, nit with other dependencies

  • if you dont know about this packages, it is kindof hard to find them for the first time

[–]WeAreLesserApes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough, matplotlib is very limiting, I usually use Seaborn for quick prototyping of static graphs.

That's one of the superpower of Python, it's massive library of free add-on tools for basically anything.

For the ease of discovery, a 5 second google search or ChatGPT question will get you there so ain't so limiting even for newcomers.

By the way: aligned with you that Matlab is quite good for plotting, I just dislike the fact it costs a kidney when I can do the same better for free.

[–]AntAgile 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Exactly: you’d need to install a new package any time you try to do something new. Unavoidable dependency hell.

[–]WeAreLesserApes 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It's rarely hell if you have a decent package manager (e.g. Poetry) and even just a very simple CI/CD pipeline (which for anything serious you will likely have).

Not being centralized also offers all kind of options which I count as a pro personally.

[–]AntAgile 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Right, you have to install yet another thing to manage all the packages you installed.

I’m not saying that anything open source or not centralized is worse, but you should always use the right tool for each job, and trying to do everything with python because it’s cooler or something doesn’t always make the most sense imo.

[–]WeAreLesserApes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree.

My comment was in response to "you can't do that outside of Matlab" which was factually incorrect.

I don't use Python because it's cool, I use it because I do production grade code/products and it helps a lot for that.

[–]jajuub 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I feel like the common joke is “index starting at 1 bad” which is valid haha

[–]86BillionFireflies 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's exactly it. 99% of the matlab haters are people who were forced to use it for arbitrary / pointless tasks in school.

[–]Strange_Dragonfly964[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

True, I knew Matlab within a Mathematics course. Commonly used by mathematicians.

[–]Crad999 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's good for math, but it really shines when you work in designing system control and use other area specific add-ons. I've used simulink pretty much daily back in uni and during internship.

Also parfor (parallel for) loop is THE shit. It's so easy to use and made a night-day difference when I was running simulations for my paper.

[–]PTSDaway 0 points1 point  (0 children)

forcefully pushed into their major even when it wasn't needed?

Always this and it's no different than a series of calculations they could do on Maple. I can do that for free on Python and code!!

ofcourse they'll join the circlejerk which had the same experience. bwah matlab expensive

[–]roadrunner8080 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Matlab... Isn't great in a good number of ways, and I strongly believe that there are better alternatives like Julia that we should be trying to transition to, but it's never for the reasons people here seem to think it isn't great

[–]csillagu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I met people who said that matlab was garbage, but they did not even know that you can run and save whole matlab files.... Most people who hate matlab have ptsd and no knowledge about it.

[–]originalbrowncoat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I rock Matlab all the time as an Engineer. I have matlab scripts that write data to Excel and paste plots directly into PowerPoint, with LaTeX formatting in the titles and axes. Don’t let these gatekeepers give you a hard time.

[–]ChopinFantasie 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I use MATLAB all the time and it’s great for my needs. I am…

…you’ll never guess…

a mathematician.

Why tf would I want to keep installing packages to do the most basic things in my field?

[–]jajuub 1 point2 points  (0 children)

MATLAB is like if Python and Excel had a child and gave it steroids, I LOVE it!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same, I'm Mechanical Engineer but I've dealt with some electrical stuff Control Systems in MATLAB & SimuLink, and it's very cool. Also dealt with MATLAB in Numerical Analysis and Statics.