MATLAB has many advantages compared to conventional computer languages
for technical problem solving. Among them are:
1. Ease of Use. MATLAB is very easy to use. The program can be used as
a scratch pad to evaluate expressions typed at the command line, or it can
be used to execute large pre-written programs. Programs may be easily
written and modified with the built-in integrated development environment,
and debugged with the MATLAB debugger. Because the language
is so easy to use, it is ideal for educational use, and for the rapid prototyping
of new programs.
Many program development tools are provided to make the program
easy to use. They include an integrated editor / debugger, on-line documentation
and manuals, a workspace browser, and extensive demos.
2. Platform Independence. MATLAB is supported on many different computer
systems, providing a large measure of platform independence. At
the time of this writing, the language is supported on Windows
XP/Vista/7, Linux, Unix, and the Macintosh. Programs written on any
platform will run on all of the other platforms, and data files written on
any platform may be read transparently on any other platform. As a result,
programs written in MATLAB can migrate to new platforms when the
needs of the user change.
3. Pre-defined Functions. MATLAB comes complete with an extensive
library of pre-defined functions that provide tested and pre-packaged
solutions to many basic technical tasks. For example, suppose that you are
writing a program that must calculate the statistics associated with an
input data set. In most languages, you would need to write your own subroutines
or functions to implement calculations such as the arithmetic
mean, standard deviation, median, etc. These and hundreds of other functions
are built right into the MATLAB language, making your job much
easier.
The built-in functions can solve an astonishing range of problems,
such as solving systems of simultaneous equations, sorting, plotting, finding
roots of equations, numerical integration, curve fitting, solving ordinary
and partial differential equations, and much, much more.
In addition to the large library of functions built into the basic MATLAB
language, there are many special-purpose toolboxes available to help
solve complex problems in specific areas. For example, a user can buy
standard toolboxes to solve problems in Signal Processing, Control
Systems, Communications, Image Processing, and Neural Networks,
among many others.
4. Device-Independent Plotting. Unlike other computer languages, MATLAB
has many integral plotting and imaging commands. The plots and
images can be displayed on any graphical output device supported by
the computer on which MATLAB is running. This capability makes
MATLAB an outstanding tool for visualizing technical data. Plotting is
introduced in Chapter 2, and covered extensively in Chapters 3 and 8.
Advanced features such as animations and movies are covered in
Chapter 10.
5. Graphical User Interface. MATLAB includes tools that allow a program
to interactively construct a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for his
or her program. With this capability, the programmer can design sophisticated
data analysis programs that can be operated by relatively-inexperienced
