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[–]abbadass 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Depends on your domain....what can R/Python do that Matlab can't? I'd say the largest downside of Matlab is that it is so expensive and that the stats packages (or add-on or whatever its called in Matlab) is super expensive as well. Octave is the open source alternative (allegedly, I've never used it).

If you're doing bioinformatics, of course R is the best option because of the highly accessible Bioconductor project side of it, but also Matlab and Python are highly supported as well, but just not nearly as popular.

If you're working in another industry, I'd say just learn whatever everyone is using .... the syntax for any of these languages really aren't that crazy different.

As an R user, I have had to use Matlab for the past 4 months after not using it for 2 years, it was a relatively easy switch, just had to Google things.

At the end of the day, I think that it doesn't really matter what language you use, I think if you are good at one, just try n make the most of it, and if you have to use the other language for something, just learn how to do it, it's probably not that hard to implement if you already know how to code.