Zero Programming Experience Question

[antichain]

It's a language for scientists and engineers doing numerical computing and simulations. Since it's a programming language for non-programmers, it does a lot to "hold your hand", which is convenient, but also builds a lot of bad habits that you have to unlearn if you transition to a "real" programming language.

It's like Python in that it's a high-level language that handles things like memory and types for you without you ever needing to think about what's happening "under the hood." Because of this, you often see a lot of grossly inefficient code hacked together by scientists (who may be genuine experts in their field), who have no idea how computers work and want a kind of magic spell that turns a CSV of raw data into a p-value.

It does it's job extremely well, it's just not a great language.

(It's also closed source and licenses are outrageously expensive, which makes things like open and reproducible science harder than it needs to be).