Regarding the academics comment, check this out: http://www.google.com/trends?q=matlab%2C+python&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Matlab related dips notably (~50% peak to trough) during spring, winter, and summer breaks. All I really have to say about MATLAB is for a piece of software backed by millions of dollars of development, its pretty notably deficient. Deficient by design actually, I mean why include image processing routines, when you could charge more for that in a toolbox? There is nothing in there that you couldn't develop in < 1000 hours of competent developer time, using standard numerical recipes. I didn't mean to start a flame war here, just wanted to present some observations. --Matthew Goodman ===================== Check Out My Website: http://craneium.net Find me on LinkedIn: http://tinyurl.com/d6wlch On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:26 PM, rjf <fate...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Feb 18, 8:51 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > At University of Washington, even with a site license, MATLAB costs me > > $100, so I don't have it on my laptop. > > There are limited licenses for students, and I've been told they have > > trouble doing homework assignments, due to > > sharing those licenses. > > FUD? > It seems to me that if I were writing useful/important code that > paying > $100 would not be such a bad idea, though I agree that "free" would be > "better". I would have reservations though if the university gave me > a "free" copy but told me that any program that I wrote using it could > never be sold by me to anyone. It would have to be owned by the > university > (as work for hire), sometimes a university policy. Or it would have > to > be given away free (Sage, GPL) policy. > > > > > > In my experience, installing MATLAB is much more difficult than > > installing Sage. > > That may be your personal experience, but I wonder how widely > shared it is? I have only read about installing Sage, so I cannot tell > for sure, but > it seems that installing on Windows is difficult. Many people post > comments about difficulty compiling it, but not everyone compiles it, > I hope. > So maybe it is easy sometimes. > > I have not installed my own copy of (Windows) Matlab for years, > but I assume it still requires downloading a matlab_installer.exe > and clicking on it, then perhaps typing the name of the license > server. > Installing software on a properly installed Linux system is even > easier > in the best case (where you have right permissions etc). > > > > > I can imagine no worse hell than being asked to > > install a working MATLAB on a bunch of random Linux, OS X, and Windows > > boxes. > > That's probably why system administrators are paid, except > when professors act as their own system administrators. > Even "free" > software can require time and skill to install. > > > > > >> > I am not surprised that there is a relatively small overlap between > > >> > scientific > > >> > computing and Python programming. Most scientific computing tasks > are > > >> > sensitive > > >> > to efficiency of resulting code. > > > > >> This is just FUD, suggesting that one can't use Python for scientific > > >> computing due to it being too slow. > > > > > Well, the issue is not so much the programming language efficiency, > > > or how much it matters in practice to have some data setup and web > > > access > > > and debugging be written in a friendlier languaage, but a perception. > > > > Thus your FUD is all the more damaging.... > > Read the article posted by Tim Daly.. > > > > >> Most people doing scientific also > > >> use C/Fortran-based libraries such as numpy and scipy, and quite a few > > >> use Cython as well. > > > > > Can't those libraries (or something like them) also be called from C > > > or Fortran? > > > > If those libraries = "numpy/scipy", then absolutely not. Most of the > > code in numpy is new code, which provides a different and powerful > > perspective on n-dimensional data manipulation that isn't provided by > > any underlying library it depends on (BLAS). Some of scipy is just > > wrapping Fortran libraries, and some (quite a bit) is new code not > > wrapping anything. > > > > > I think the right perspective is shown here. You can use Python to > wrap > what most people consider the scientific computing core systems. > Writing those core systems in Python is not particularly credible. > But wrapping difficult-to-use programs in nicer "higher level" ways > may be a worthy endeavor. > > ( a somewhat unfair analogy --- > We do not say that the rapid proliferation > of cell phones means they are increasingly being used to write > internet communications software... > > That's what I was driving at in my question that you chose to > ignore.. > > "Oh, that reminds me, what is Lapack written in? > Do you think it would benefit by rewriting in Python or Cython? > What about Scalapack, BLAS, etc. " ) > > In terms of Jan's comment -- I'm not sure the barrier to entry is > lowest for Python -- There are lots of contenders, and it is not > obvious which is the winner. In some circumstances, I've found > that Visual Basic or JScript (ECMAscript/) are trivial. Python has > other useful attributes though. > > Anyway, if we say that people who wrap FORTRAN programs in python are > called > "scientific computing" programmers, maybe we need another name for the > people who write those FORTRAN (or C or whatever) programs. > > None of this really affects the validity of the Tiobe data which says > that > Python "Tiobe popularity index" is higher than ever. > > RJF > > > -- > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel > URL: http://www.sagemath.org > -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
