Hi, I also studied numerical mathematics and I completely agree on you: On Friday, August 19, 2011 9:55:58 AM UTC+2, Johan S. R. Nielsen wrote: > > that's a very small syntax price to pay for … >
I would also say that this is not the point at all. Parsing a string representing a matrix should be possible, but we shouldn't purely focus on matlab but see this more broadly. > My impression from my own math department is that a lot of Matlab > users know more or less only Matlab as a programming language... I think the point with matlab is, that it is optimized for a narrow use case. That's nice as always, but stops you doing more complex things. For example, string manipulation and higher dimensional data arrays, structured data, the java programming interface etc. All this comes "after the fact" as some kind of addon to solve its limits. This whole approach of matlab forces the programmer to represent the data in specific ways that get very confusing. Instead of python lists, you have excel like matrices just because matrices are easy to do. Then you have index matrices and other matrices that mix with those you already have by having the same number of rows or columns… confusion starts. So yes, it's a hurdle and you have to learn proper programming and representing your data in a useful way when you want to switch from matlab to python, but it's worth. You safe yourself from headaches. I suggest we should look more broadly on the features matlab users expect from a viable alternative. For example, this EPD is a nice package and there you can see what is necessary to be compatible: tools to create a UI, interfacing with various data sources and machines, toolboxes (statistics, optimization, ...), plotting of course, etc. And as usual, the documentation needs to be better - not just reference, but proper introduction with learning paths and so on. H -- 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
