[SciPy-user] Matlab, Scipy and teaching science

[Robert Cimrman]

Tiziano Zito wrote:
> We used Python for Computational Neuroscience teaching here:
> 
> http://itb.biologie.hu-berlin.de/~zito/teaching/CNSIV/index.html
> 
> Another strong arguments against Matlab is that it lacks any kind of
> Object Oriented design. As already stated by others, that makes
> practically impossible to reuse old code for new things and exchange
> code with other people. Last argument is speed and memory
> consumption. Part of our MDP Python library was originally written in 
> Matlab: the corresponding Python versions are not only much shorter,
> but at least two times faster. Python passes arguments to functions
> as references, whereas Matlab uses copies: if you are dealing with
> large matrices this makes a difference.

Just a minor correction - Matlab passes arguments also by reference, but 
it makes a *copy* of each argument that you change inside the function - 
it can be (ugly)-hacked around though...

r.