Allen wrote:
Does anyone agree with me?
If you have used Matlab, welcome to discuss it.
Matlab is a tool for scientists and engineers.
Python is a tool for programmers.
I think you are looking at Python from the scientist perspective.
Python's numpy and matplotlib modules would probably feel familiar to
anyone with some matlab experience. But these are not a part of the
language - it is not even a part of the standard library.
I will not go deep into the programmer perspective.
Some more programmer tools: Java, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lisp, Ruby. Comparing
Python to these makes sense. I think comparing Matlab to any of those
would be absurd. Have a look at modpython.org - is there a need for a
similar modmatlab?
Now, back to the scientist perspective.
In 1999, I was starting my M.Sc. in astrophysics and had to select my
data analysis tools. I needed the standard scientific tools:
scripting, numerics, graphics - Matlab + shell is good enough for
this. But I also needed a library for FITS file processing, which was
not available in Matlab. So Matlab alone was not enough.
Matlab + IRAF + shell was one alternative. Shell + IDL (Interactive
Data Language) was another. There were also other possibilities
(Fortran for numerics, C or Ftools for FITS). To cut it short, after a
while I ended up with shell + IDL as my main tools, occasionally using
the others.
About two years later my scripts were so complex I decided to learn a
scripting language. I was lucky enough to choose Python. Soon I found
pyraf, pyfits and numarray, later gnuPlot.py and matplotlib - IDL was
no longer needed. Python was enough.
Then one day I was looking for a postdoc position. I found something
else, and now I do text mining. I still need the science tools:
scripting, numerics, graphics.
I also need:
1) Regular expressions
2) XML library
3) Database interface
Python covers it all. I think Matlab has a Database interface, but how
about the others?
--
Juho Schultz
