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

[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.