[Thaeris]

Everyone loves the internets. And everyone thus loves Urban Dictionary, which must be one of the best sources for learning the Lore of the Internets, all without having to actually subject yourself to crimes against man, machine, and nature - which might occur if you peer into pits like 4chan, etc.!

And the real world is far more entertaining due to the internets. I remember my first university, as an inherently dull freshman (any freshman... in any environment... will fit this criteria. There is no exception.), attempting the horror known as MATLAB. Well, at least it seemed that way at the time. And having a rediculously Asian professor didn't help things along, either. Thus, resorting to the internets, my comrades and myself discovered the real meaning of MATLAB, aptly defined by Urban Dictionary. Refer to definition #1:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=MATLAB

Ah yes, the real world according to the internets. Feel free to contribute... 

[Rian]

I used MATLAB for a non-academic purpose the other day.

...does that make me a demon, or just a nerd?

[Mika]

Huh?

MATLAB (along with C) has been about the most useful programming language I have learned. I never needed to attend even any courses or read any books about it. However, the combination of MEX and MATLAB wasn't that fun.

The real nightmare is Mathematica, of which I had the misfortune of having to attend a mandatory course.

And C++ for lesser extend

Lately I have been checking through the most expensive programming errors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_1
Ariane 5 is pretty close to that.

CIA intentionally leaked a code that appeared to work to Soviet Union which then caused about the biggest man made non-nuclear explosion (1982):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002

[Mongoose]

Once I actually figured out what I was doing with MATLAB in the class that required it, I didn't find it that difficult to use at all.  The basic language syntax isn't all that different from C.

[Colonol Dekker]

Phew, i thought this was anover one of "those" threads.......carry on

[Thaeris]

Phew, i thought this was anover one of "those" threads.......carry on

Whatever do you mean? This was just for fun. 

And no, MATLAB isn't bad at all. Taking C++ right now, I find I like C++ much more than MATLAB.

[CP5670]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=MATLAB

I've seen that one before. Double jump is another good one that comes to mind. I like one of the entries for fanboi too, although it should have been used for a different word.

I use both Matlab and Mathematica regularly. They are useful for different things, and they both manage to irritate me in different ways.

[Thaeris]

In all honesty, the only thing I really remember from the class was the "why" function in the entry window. Which does not do one much good, aside from informing you of what the fat, bald, design engineer told the smelly hamster to do.

With a bit of time, I'm sure I could pick the syntax up again with little effort.

[CP5670]

The syntax is easy to learn, but that isn't the issue. For a high level language designed for computation, Matlab has some strange hardcoded limitations and lacks some basic features that you would think would be built-in. Mathematica, on the other hand, tries to be "too clever" with several of its built-in functions and can sometimes take way too long to do simple things.

Mathematica's symbolic capabilities make it great for testing out ideas, while Matlab or C are better for any production-level programs. I made this algorithm last week and it took me about 2 minutes to get (an inefficient version of) it into Mathematica and 3-4 minutes for it to run, while it took over a hour to get the same thing working in Matlab and 20 seconds for it to run.