![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
MATLAB rotted my brain
I learned to program in the 80s on BASIC. Nothing very fancy, but I got my if-then-elses and do-whiles in a row.
In college, I met MATLAB. MATLAB (or, as I like to call it, Matlab) is "The Language of Technical Computing" to those who like it, and something more like "Computing fer Enjuneerz" to those who prefer "real" languages. Matlab has three stellar traits, IMO: it makes input/output to files fairly easy, it has many useful functions already written, and it's good for graphing data.
In late college and grad school, I learned C from the venerable Kernignan and Ritchie text. Matlab is very C-like, but many things that were trivial in Matlab require more effort in C. That's because C is lean and mean, whereas Matlab is bloated with overhead. The things that make Matlab easy also slow it down. I worked all in C for my MS work, even. C and I, eventually, were pals.
Then came the dissertation, which went back to Matlab. I haven't coded in C since 2001.
You would not believe the hoops one must set up to shove input through to verify that the user has, indeed, entered a number when asked for one. (OK, some of you would.) It's not that it's overly difficult, per se... just a PITA when compared to "isreal(input)" or "isscalar(input)" in Matlab. I'm lazy now. :/
In college, I met MATLAB. MATLAB (or, as I like to call it, Matlab) is "The Language of Technical Computing" to those who like it, and something more like "Computing fer Enjuneerz" to those who prefer "real" languages. Matlab has three stellar traits, IMO: it makes input/output to files fairly easy, it has many useful functions already written, and it's good for graphing data.
In late college and grad school, I learned C from the venerable Kernignan and Ritchie text. Matlab is very C-like, but many things that were trivial in Matlab require more effort in C. That's because C is lean and mean, whereas Matlab is bloated with overhead. The things that make Matlab easy also slow it down. I worked all in C for my MS work, even. C and I, eventually, were pals.
Then came the dissertation, which went back to Matlab. I haven't coded in C since 2001.
You would not believe the hoops one must set up to shove input through to verify that the user has, indeed, entered a number when asked for one. (OK, some of you would.) It's not that it's overly difficult, per se... just a PITA when compared to "isreal(input)" or "isscalar(input)" in Matlab. I'm lazy now. :/