Comments on: MATLAB for the masses http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/matlab-for-the-masses/ education | teaching | math | technology Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:57:58 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Robert http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/matlab-for-the-masses/#comment-17882 Robert Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:29:53 +0000 http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/?p=1754#comment-17882 Also, when I brought this idea up with the university with whom we partner on the engineering program, their precise words were: "We don't care how you run the course as long as you are using MATLAB." So I might mention some cheap/free/open source alternatives for MATLAB (Sage is another good one) but for the course we pretty much have to use name-brand MATLAB in order to satisfy the requirements of the university course. Also, when I brought this idea up with the university with whom we partner on the engineering program, their precise words were: “We don’t care how you run the course as long as you are using MATLAB.” So I might mention some cheap/free/open source alternatives for MATLAB (Sage is another good one) but for the course we pretty much have to use name-brand MATLAB in order to satisfy the requirements of the university course.

]]> By: Robert http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/matlab-for-the-masses/#comment-17881 Robert Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:16:47 +0000 http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/?p=1754#comment-17881 Brian, we received a donation from a trustee (matched by her employer) that paid for the cost of five individual licenses (for the faculty) and a 50-user network license of both MATLAB and the Symbolic Toolbox. So as long as students are on campus and not trying to use the software the same time a class is using it, they will get free access to it. But I'm going to strongly encourage students to purchase the student version of MATLAB especially if they live off campus and/or plan on getting a math major or minor. At $100, that's still quite a deal. (I'm also looking in to free or very-low-cost textbooks that would free up the money to spend on the student version.) Brian, we received a donation from a trustee (matched by her employer) that paid for the cost of five individual licenses (for the faculty) and a 50-user network license of both MATLAB and the Symbolic Toolbox. So as long as students are on campus and not trying to use the software the same time a class is using it, they will get free access to it. But I’m going to strongly encourage students to purchase the student version of MATLAB especially if they live off campus and/or plan on getting a math major or minor. At $100, that’s still quite a deal. (I’m also looking in to free or very-low-cost textbooks that would free up the money to spend on the student version.)

]]> By: Brian http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/matlab-for-the-masses/#comment-17880 Brian Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:08:05 +0000 http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/?p=1754#comment-17880 I agree that teaching students to use a system like MATLAB rather than a lower level programming language like C/C++/Fortran/Java/... is a good choice. It's worth pointing out that a major problem with MATLAB is that the software is quite expensive- your students may not like having to pay for the student edition of MATLAB if they want to run the software on their personal machines. There are a number of free/open source alternatives to MATLAB that are worth considering. Of these, the strongest is probably R, which focuses more on statistics than traditional numerical computing, but which can be used to do most things that can be done with MATLAB. Other contendors include Octave (which is a MATLAB "work-a-like" system- it runs most MATLAB programs), and Scilab. I agree that teaching students to use a system like MATLAB rather than a lower level programming language like C/C++/Fortran/Java/… is a good choice.

It’s worth pointing out that a major problem with MATLAB is that the software is quite expensive- your students may not like having to pay for the student edition of MATLAB if they want to run the software on their personal machines.

There are a number of free/open source alternatives to MATLAB that are worth considering. Of these, the strongest is probably R, which focuses more on statistics than traditional numerical computing, but which can be used to do most things that can be done with MATLAB. Other contendors include Octave (which is a MATLAB “work-a-like” system- it runs most MATLAB programs), and Scilab.

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