Would you prefer C or MatLab for a computational physics class?

Would you prefer C or MatLab for a computational physics class?

C++
C is outdated
Matlav is proprietary

MatLab

or FreeMat since it's about physics and you won't need every trick in the book

C
C++ is a clusterfuck
Matlab is proprietary

I've already got matlab from my uni's server so thats not a problem

REMOVE MATLAB! Get that proprietary bullshit out of my face!

why the h8 user?

I'm actually clueless on the topic.
I've only used Matlab, for some labs in my undergrad.
What's the reason you hate it so much?

matlab just for doing on the fly calculations

NumPy !

I agree this would be best for a class. Although C/C++ are better if you may execute it more than a million times, python is ideal if you'll never execute it more than 100 times. Plus python is used in many more real world contexts than Matlab so it's better experience.

It is terrible. I love python, until I actually tried to do some science computation in it. Just now I was using sympy and when I used the diag() function it returned me a column vector! I had to switch to maple because I wasn't sure when it would give me a vector or a matrix. It is also more convoluted and not very seamless. I can't use numpy's matrix structure with other packages, like tensorflow.

Instead, when I need to do some numerical calculations I use octave or when symbolic, maple or sage. None is as good to program as python, but at least they work for what they are needed.

we fucking /g/ now?
so what if it's proprietary

We're not /gee/ but we're not /brainlet/ either. Proprietary langs are an abomination.

For a class? Matlab. You probably aren't going to do a large project with a need for speed. Most likely you will be doing proof-of-concept type work, for various concepts. Matlab will get that done much faster than C.

You can use Octave, the free version of Matlab. It probably has what you need. If you do need the speed of C, you can write the critical parts in C and call them from within Matlab.

Fortran.

Computational physics:
Python or C, probably.
Depending on what you need it to do.

If you're simulating a ton of jiggling atoms; Use C. (Time consuming though)

For quick prototyping, or for simpler calculations python is probably the easiest, and most versatile.
MatLab is proprietary, i.e. As a private person it'll cost you a shitton to use, and it doesn't offer anything you can't get in python, which is free.

Lisp is also good if you want to go deeper, but isn't very intuitive for solving physics-problems.

that background is comfy as fuck though

>he thinks matlab is "Slower" than C

Mathematica

fuck off to

>t. engiqueer
Keep your dirty grubs away from computers you non-humans

thanks man, have a whole folder of those

well as said above i already have matlab installed from my university's server.
well mainly doing Monte Carlo simulations and solving ODEs and integrals..

That sounds like a user error to be honest.

>engineers create computers
>don't touch what you create...REEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Yes engineers, like actual engineers, not office drones hacking away at matlab

>C++ is a clusterfuck

brainlet detected.
it's not the language's fault you only ever came in contact with 15yrs old libraries. those are a clusterfuck also in java, which became relevant around roughly the same time C++ did.

>You can use Octave, the free version of Matlab

Communism is never free.

>yes yes goy, give us your code for free so we can sell it, you wouldn't want to be a communist would you?

Racket

Matlab is cancer, it can't decide if it wants to be normie intuitive or code logical, so you're always fucking guessing if it'll want one or the other.
Problem is for most shit I do it's so much faster than writing proper code.
Computational physics though just learn C nigger.

It isn't, unfortunately. I think sympy implemented their own function that overwrote numpy's. In the terminal, as soon as I imported sympy, even aliases as sp, it stopped working.

CS majors hate it because it's used for actual work and not LARPing as JC Denton
Linux users hate it because it's useful and not foss

octave is matlab but free as in freedom

>being this much of a fucking cuckold
you deserve everything bad in your life

use Julia
it's matlab but actually fast, sensible, and open-source

>i enjoy paying hundreds of dollars for software and utilities which come standard in other free and widely-used/supported languages and libraries
i bet you think python and C++ aren't "useful"

cute

>paying for MATLAB

if you're not paying for it your university is
enjoy giving away jewgolds that you could be receiving as stipend/grants

>2017
>Not pirating matlab

>using shitty knock-off software that no one in industry or academia really cares about
>not learning how to use widely-respected open source libraries and languages like python, c++, julia, or R instead
i mean sure if you plan on staying in your mother's basement for the foreseeable future

I'll keep using MATCHAD thank you very much.

I had computational physics taught in Python last semester because my uni makes everybody take Matlab or Java instead of a foreign language.
I can program but admittedly know very little about actual cs concepts so I don't have amy real idea why one language would be superior. Python seemed fine for what we did. The professor who taught it made a bunch of python libraries that he uses for his research, which are early universe simulations. If you've ever been to a museum exhibit on or seen a documentary on the big bang there's a 95% chance you saw some of his work, he sells renders of his simulations when he's done.

He's seen this, right?

C++, doofus

>Dongflationary

Why isn't this a 3d.gif?

>if we don't use GPL, our code we are giving away for free could be stolen!!!!111one

I can't believe how many retards fall for this bullshit.

>thinking open source = GPL
>thinking people who program in open source care about you "stealing" their code
you're a fucking retard and you don't understand why people like open-source standards

They do when it prevents them from owning their own code.

>I can't use numpy's matrix structure with other packages, like tensorflow.

Uh yes you can...

fortran

Sage/Python or R, that is all.

The fact that C and C++ are such common answers in these threads is a testament to how poor the scientific computing ecosystem is. The amount of man hours scientists must waste debugging C/C++ code must be atrocious.

Julia is trying to fix it, but they have yet to really make an impact. Python could have been the perfect answer, but its too slow unless you are offloading all of the computation to BLAS or C routines.

I'm a compE and I love me some C but physicists don't need to learn it and probably shouldn't bother especially since they are mostly terrible at programming anything that isn't babby's first scripting language

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