Matlab and iview and Mathematica-

[heman]

Hi all

I am in the very first year in college and when i enter into my college library i see some books on Matlab and iview and Mathematica-which i know...Can Pls Explain the importance of MATLAB and its applications and other such things...
I really want to learn such techniques which can make my maths easy.

Regards
Heman

 

[neurocomp2003]

matlab maple and mathematica are very useful tools.

If your doing calculus/analysis/applied math generally stick to maple/mathematica

if your doing applied linear algebra(with numbers), graphics, engineering(which uses algebra)...or simulations with matrices stick to matlab

as for logic: I've never had to code from logic so i don't know what to use

Though of courses each software usually has capabilities of performing either...matlab is easier to code with if you know programming. While Mathematica and maple are pains in the but...though mathematica is nice for symbols...Maple I'm not sure what its used for but its a Canadian standard because waterloo makes it.

So it really depends on what your solving. But if you plan to be an engineer or psych simulator/chem/bio simulator you'll prolly at sopme point need matlab.

 

[heman]

Thx Neuro,
Actually i am an Computer Science Student and i have basic knowledge of them...So does it really makes Matlab imp. for me/

 

[neurocomp2003]

depends this time on the career you seek. If you wann abe a generic programmer
than you don't need it. But Matlab is an added bonus if you want to wokr in some simulations/science field. Especially when large amounts of math is used. Matlab is a great testbed for testing to see if your Algorithms are correct because one can code very fast in matlab. Also Matlab is so easy compared to C/C++. Its basically a scripting language but the coding conventions that you learn from programming can be applied to it.

Why MATLAB is so easy:
[] ALOT of built in functions and toolbox
[] no printf/cout manipulations
[] you don't need to do memory calls.

Why MATLAB sucks
[] You become dependent on it
[] Its interface dependent(haven't been able to figure out if you can export exe
[] you don't control the memory.

SO again its a great tool to have but if your just learning programming stick to C/C++
first. I regret jumping into MATLAB before being comfortable with C/C++(i didn't have a choice it was a standard at my school). I can code in MATLAB no problem...but I can't sit and code in C/C++ for some reason. Though I like to code in the language.