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MATLAB Can't Manipulate 64-Bit Integers
An anonymous reader writes "MATLAB, an important package of mathematical software heavily used in industry and academia, has had support for 64-bit machines for several years now. However, the MATLAB developers still haven't gotten around to implementing even basic arithmetic operations for 64-bit integers. Attempting to add, divide, subtract, or multiply two 64-bit integers will result in an error message saying that the corresponding method does not exist. As one commentator put it, 'What is the point of having numerical data types that can't be manipulated?'" The post notes that the free MATLAB clone GNU Octave deals with 64-bit integers just fine.
Just another reason to switch to numeric python. The more I use Matlab the less I find that I like it.
I don't have mod point, so allow me to second that.
The advantage of MATLab for me was ease of development that it allows me to quickly get some simple proof-of-concept code up. If I want run time speed, I'd use CLAPACK and GNU SL. I can't imagine doing any very serious numeric code in anything else (not that my work was very numeric heavy). With NumPy and SciPy, it is just as easy to do what MATLab does in a language that's actually fun to work with.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Two things:
1) This is true for 64-bit INTEGERS. The default data type for MATLAB is a 64-bit float, and has been forever.
2) This is a design decision by MATLAB's designers. You don't have to declare or type variables in MATLAB: you just set a = 5 and a new variable "a" is created. You set a(2) = 3, and now a grows into a 1-d array.
It's a handy feature and a core aspect of MATLAB's ease-of-use design, but to do this, you need to have a default data type.
64-bit float is the best choice: you can represent any number up to around 4,503,599,627,370,496 without error. For practical purposes, this means MATLAB will work fine for any real-world integer counting task: it only fails if you're interested in cryptography, primes, or other discrete math tasks, in which case you're not using MATLAB anyway.
38 downloads may not indicate a lack of demand. The demand may be there, but it may be masked in the confusion of what may be thought to have been a standard part of the program.
When our uni upgraded the maths lab computers Matlab versions to R2008a they installed the 64bit version as well. The logical thought was that the computers are 64bit, they have the option, so why not. Well at the time the basic add-on packages weren't available for the 64bit version, which included the package with the solve() function. Sure they could have looked on the website and found a few basic implementations of Newtonian solve functions written for 64bit, but their response to student complaints was to remove the 64bit Matlab and install the 32bit version.
Much like how a pirated copy does not indicate a lost sale, the fact that only few people have "demand" for the application, does not mean there's a lack of demand for the functionality in the 64bit program. It may just mean that people have tried, found it lacking, and dropped back to 32bit. I'd be interested to see stats of how many people use the 64bit Matlab on computers that natively support 64bit instructions
That's funny. I am researcher and work with math and plotting software on a professional basis, and even when I need Matlab to do the work (e.g. if I have to use nlinfit), I always prefer to export the data to .mat and plot in Octave. Gnuplot's output generally looks better when exported to EPS/PDF.
Gnuplot does not allow to do GUI editing: that's a big plus, because I am forced, every time, to write a script: I know that if I don't write it, I will miss it later when I want to change something (it always happens). Also, it is much easier in Octave to specify a font (-F:Palatino, for example) than in Matlab: possibly not on top of your list of priorities, but when I wrote my PhD thesis I wanted to write everything with the same font: Matlab plots require you to edit the EPS source.
Curious. I just published an article with several 3D plots (which I usually eschew), and it was not really more difficult to get things done in Octave than in Matlab.
I call bullshit, you never really tried. Have a look at matplotlib. And, that aside, Matlab is available on Linux too.
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