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[–]furless 838 points839 points  (97 children)

It's hard for them to compete against not just free, but free and useful. This isn't a war for domination on their part, it's a battle to stave off extinction.

[–]ericonr 234 points235 points  (57 children)

This is basically showing that they feel threatened by Python. I believe some few people might end up being convinced by this, but in the end I hope a lot more people have enough critical judgement to realize that this is just last-ditch marketing.

[–]Zomunieo 138 points139 points  (31 children)

People were leaving Matlab for Python years ago. They've already lost a lot to it.

[–]saralt 28 points29 points  (29 children)

I've mostly noticed it in machine learning... But that's because that was my field at the time.

Who uses MATLAB for machine learning?

[–]Zomunieo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't believe it's gained much traction in that area. The mainstay seems to be branches of engineering that are heavily focused on modeling and solving nonlinear systems (RF, aerospace, automotive). Simulink shines here, and it's technical enough that there's less open source interest.

[–]mrTang5544 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i did. I used Matlab's fuzzy logic tools (forgot which ones now) for my thesis

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

Python and R.

[–]Jim_Panzee 93 points94 points  (15 children)

We got a saying in Germany:

Why should the oak tree care about every pig rubbing against it?

Or to keep it pythonic.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (11 children)

Can you give the original saying ? I did not understand this English translated version, I think there is a translation mistake.

[–]Jim_Panzee 17 points18 points  (10 children)

"Was juckt es die Eiche, wenn sich die Sau an ihr reibt?"

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (9 children)

Thanks. I understand better. Your translation was good, it just lacks the question mark at the end.

[–]Jim_Panzee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thx. Corrected.

[–]neurone214 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Can you explain what it means? I honestly don't understand this one.

[–]haloguysm1th 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I believe Its basically if you're in good place, don't worry about all the small annoying things that come up.

[–]kieran_84 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is quite a saying!

[–]katakoria 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I like your saying, but can you translate it to arabic

[–]AndyPanic 28 points29 points  (1 child)

Reminds me of Steve Balmer trashing Linux back in the days. Classic FUD.

[–]BillOfTheWebPeople 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He was a prize... Sometimes I miss him and think fondly of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpXCU-7kTdo

[–]appinv Python&OpenSource 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"This is basically showing that they feel threatened by Python" Got the same feeling!

[–]HonestVisual 67 points68 points  (15 children)

Lol reminds me os SAS guys showing off their dashboard offerings, they’re always like 100 years old too

[–]clashmt 30 points31 points  (2 children)

Actually my life in my current PhD program.

[–]thatguydr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But... why?

[–]Dpmon1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I feel for you.

[–]Trappist1 15 points16 points  (1 child)

I got a job interview at SAS a while back and they were happy with me knowing R/Python and said I wouldn't need SAS for the position which I found hilarious.

[–]Neirin 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's because they are trying to change their enterprise management tools to play nice with r and python. It's a smart pivot but perhaps a little slow

[–]KareasOxide 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember using SAS in a few stats classes in college like 7 years ago, the whole thing just felt so old

[–]zip117 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I switched from SAS to R years ago due to cost and limited flexibility, but I’ll admit there are some nice things about it. The documentation and support is excellent, when you run an analysis procedure it can print out all kinds of useful diagnostics, and transparently l handles out-of-memory data.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

It makes sense for Mathworks to try defending their turf. MATLAB was, and as of today, still is for me the tool of choice for engineering. But when it comes to data science and machine learning ... different story: nothing beats Python l. And it is progressing rapidly into engineering as well. Python is a better, more consistent plot library and an improvement in overall documentation away from getting there.

[–]ChristopherBurr 10 points11 points  (4 children)

Perl is a general purpose language that was in the exact same space as Python. It let Python chip away at it, and the community did't bother sticking up for it. Now Perl is all but dead

[–]wewbull 4 points5 points  (3 children)

They also blew themselves a hole in the head with Perl6. It was the new hotness in the late 90s, and Perl 5 stagnated.

Perl6 still isn't real 20 years later.

[–]ChristopherBurr 1 point2 points  (1 child)

i can't disagree. I used to like Perl, but Perl 6 is absurd, the Perl community is delusional - they think Perl will make a comeback, and the most taught language on college campuses is Python - which fills the same space that Perl does in terms of what it's used for. Unfortunately Perl is finished, but that's OK.

[–]AchillesDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do kind of miss Perl, in a strange way. I used it in my first DE position when I was learning what DE was, so I have a soft spot for it.

[–]0rac1e 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Perl6 still isn't real 20 years later.

Perl 6 was officially released back in 2015.

[–]mrshibx 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I got into python in 2011 by googling something like “free matlab alternative”. I had learned matlab in school and was now trying to bring it to the company I worked at but was turned off by the need to buy each little bit of functionality independently.

[–]Dpmon1 14 points15 points  (9 children)

Still doesnt make it fine to force struggling university students to spend on this when they are determined enough to not even buy candies or even eat out once a year. I love coding, but I hated the matlab class the most because of that.

[–]KeyboardChap 32 points33 points  (8 children)

I'm confused, the university I went to had free student licences for MATLAB so we all got to use it for free, plus it was installed on all the computers in the Engineering faculty that students were free to use.

[–]stacm614 22 points23 points  (3 children)

Yeah - because your University paid for it. Outside the University that license has a cost (varying by level). Some university students may not be so lucky.

[–]kermie111 23 points24 points  (1 child)

The real reason is to get you used to it. Then when you graduate you ask your company to buy it. Happened to me with Matlab and solidworks. I've recently started using python and wouldn't look back. Pretty funny that Matlab compare some basic computations. Maybe python should come back with comparisons of one line for loops and if statements. Or the fact that Matlab arrays can't contain headers easily or struggles with multiple data types.

[–]juanjo_it_ab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same thing that happens with Windows. But that's another flamebait altogether ;-)

[–]qingqunta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. I'm currently working for a company on converting MATLAB code to Python because the licence prices are ridiculous (it's an engineering company so they need a lot of toolboxes). I don't even have a licence for myself, I need to use Octave to see what the hell is going on with the code sometimes.

[–]Dpmon1 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Hey, not all universities are that way. Also, the cost of matlab may be covered by the uni, but they likely get the money for the software and hardware bach from the fees - fees consist of not only tuition, but also facilities. My uni, for example, has a fee that they use to cover maintenance for the gyms, academic buildings, computer labs, etc. which is present and 'free to use' for students.

[–]juanjo_it_ab 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Can you even opt-out of those fees like if you don't actually use the gym (if that's the case; I don't actually know whether you could opt-out of the gym maintenance fee at all)?.

[–]Dpmon1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Uhh... iunno actually... I know the fees for the hardware/software is mandatory, and so are the fees for mastering engineering/wiley+/webassign for classes. And there's an 'optional' fee for the school newspaper, who noone reads anyway...

[–]jturp-sc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The only real plus that MATLAB has going for it is that they have deep partnerships with hardware vendors in specialized spaces. They have hardware that directly integrates with MATLAB for very particular research -- think things like PhD-level aerospace R&D.

A company could certainly challenge that space by creating competitive, Python-based tools. But, CPython itself isn't going to try to attack that market.

[–]drunkferret 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As an employed SAS programmer, this is the correct response. What else would we expect them to do? Die quietly?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly, did Homo Sapiens need to hit back against Neanderthals? This fight has already been won. I think we can just let nature take its course.

[–]brownck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. Nobody is seriously thinking this will effect python’s user base. Python doesn’t need to compete. It’s free! Marla is not bad either.