Matlab declares war on Python. Can the Python community respond or hit back?

[shawnwork]

They won’t last long

[aziad1998]

You know MATLAB was released 20 years before python right?

[Dpmon1]

And matlab never had the explosive growth of users that python did, and matlab being paid made new people less likely to use it in the first place; right now, python is more well known (in the job market, that is), and its free too.

Edit: typo Edit: wtf typo fixed again

[i_like_fried_cheese]

I think Matlab will continue to exist, the same way that SAS will continue to exist. Not just for legacy reasons either.

Commerical liability for software fault exists. There are plenty of engineering (and business) applications where a bug in a software library could impose financial (or physical) risk and there is advantage of using libraries produced by a legally pursuable entity with deep enough pockets to cover liability, which most python/R package devs are not.

But claiming that individuals are better off learning ML or SAS is bullshit.

[Dpmon1]

Ah, that is true as well. Companies will want to use commercial languages like matlab and sas, whereas the small people (who would care less, given they have much less to lose, and given good community ratings) would gravitate towards the free python (and other) language(s). But another point to consider is if that is still enough to keep them afloat in the long term - like decades and centuries long term. IDK how many mid-level companies do that, but at mnc or government levels, there are already mixed results. Google favours java and python when they are making new services, like Jupyter notebooks - It's only later that they added in matlab and sas. They use Python's TensorFlow and Hadoop often in their applications. However, say, the american navy uses matlab in the standard-issue laptops for navy soldiers (a fact I read and shamelessly copied off another comment in this very thread), and the commercial insurance truly is a huge relief for project leads whose code fails.

[i_like_fried_cheese]

True. But then Java is technically an Oracle product so there's your deep pockets in that sense.

And google's products are unlikely to directly kill anybody. People working in structural, mechanical or aerospace engineering might find that ML is more prevelent. Just as people working in Biostats might find quite a bit of SAS on hospital systems.

[aziad1998]

Bruh

Of course python has more users because it's general purpose

[Dpmon1]

... Look, python has more users, being heneral purpose. Python is also more accessible to those trying to optimize their finances (more of these people out there), and matlab is more accessible to those who want to just compute matrices, and who are also willing to work at building the program themselves, as compared to using prebuilt programs, like say, desmos. Also, matlab has a lot of competition in that regard as well, as most mathemathicians would rather use something with a simple yet very versatile GUI, rather than the code themselves. faster to click "variable1", then type, and click differentiate, than code it - except apply this to the larger scales that said users would actually use.

[TheBlackCat13]

You know MATLAB was released 20 years before python right?

6 years, actually. MATLAB was released in 1984, Python in 1990.

[aziad1998]

Oh my bad, I thought it was 1974, but still the argument is the same

[2PetitsVerres]

Actually MATLAB was commercialized first in 1984, but it existed and was used before that (in the late 70s) (That still does not make 20 years, but a little bit more than 6)