| Re: idl vs. pv-wave [message #9612 is a reply to message #275] |
Thu, 24 July 1997 00:00   |
Franz.Dollinger
Messages: 14
Registered: July 1997
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Junior Member |
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In article <33D603BD.4FDA@zibmt.uni-ulm.de>, David Ritscher
<david.ritscher@zibmt.uni-ulm.de> writes:
>
> Don't forget to look at MATLAB as another possible choice. They are
> also making strides now, and it looks like they are adding enough new
> language features that one could now program a real system within
> MATLAB (before, there were major deficiencies, such as no 2-D arrays,
> no integer type, etc.).
After using PV-WAVE a few years I changed the company I'm working for and had to
take a look at MATLAB as it was the only available program around for
data analysis.
All I encountered was deficiencies. I was really disappointed by the bad
performance of MATLAB with every single command I entered. Tens of minutes for a
contour plot PV-WAVE needs about half a minute for. When trying to produce a
surface plot MATLAB painted every single point in a way a first semester student
would implement it as quick_and_dirty solution. (Of course screwing up the
information )
In addition MATLAB needed tons of memory and CPU time, causing me to run it on a
machine equipped for doing huge FEM analysis.(I am working on a UNIX workstation
most of the time)
When running an application under NT that needed repeated system calls, MATLAB
made working on the desktop impossible as it created an iconized DOS-window for
every system call deleting every mouse selection or pulldown menu that was
activated at that moment.
A collegue had to pre-format data using a C program to make MATLAB work with
that data. (he is an experienced programmer)
> Particularly interesting with MATLAB are the
> availability of 'compilers' that convert MATLAB code to C or C++ code.
has anyone got experience with the efficiency of the C/C++ code generated
by MATLAB? If the performance is like that of MATLAB programs itself
one better sticks with C/C+ and appropriate toolboxes.
> They have also recently added some object-oriented features. My
> initial impression is that They do not seem to be as strongly
> integrated into the language as do those of IDL. A major advantage of
> MATLAB is the rich collection of toolboxes, often written by
> software has been developed under MATLAB; I can send you references,
> if that's of interest.
Advantage??? You have to buy a toolbox for every single command PV-WAVE
already integrated (at least in PV-WAVE Advantage)!
Its hard for me to believe that so many people use that program. The performance
I experienced was worse than that of a typical MS/Windows program.
And they want real $$$ for that hack. If you buy a license for UNIX the license
has to be renewed (=$$$$) every single year!!
I understand the Windows/PC philosophy to get less quality and less performance
for less $$$ making things more affordable. But the price for MATLAB seems (only
got second hand info) to be even higher than that of PV-WAVE Advantage (!!!!!!)
whith drastically worse performance and much less flexibility. Not talking about
the lack of functionality ( navigator, wz_plots, data structures, IMSL numerics,
...)
bye
Franz
(I never worked with IDL - so I cant comment on that)
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