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Mathematica vs. Matlab?

Posted by Cliff on from the advantages-and-disadvantages-of-specific-math-packages dept.

Ninnux asks: "I wanted to find out from the community which was the better mathametics modeling package: Mathematica or Matlab. The cancer center I research and program for is considering purchasing a license set. I'll be working with Bayesian machine learning and other bioinformatic approaches for hormone pathway modeling. I know Matlab has various toolboxes that would be rather useful, but I'd like to hear what people think." While I'm sure direct comparisons will be made, I think focusing on the specific niche will help Ninnux the most; so, how well does each piece of software handle Bayesian functions and other bioinformatic computations?

1 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Mathematic and Maple vs. Matlab by jbolden · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mathematica and Matlab are very different products. Mathematica focuses on quality symbolic computation and features like unlimited precision arithmetic. Matlab focuses on high speed algorithms for numerical computation.
    Maple is a similar product to mathematica.

    So really the question is would you rather have faster numerical processing or greater symbolic capacity?