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Re: speed comparison of IDL, numPy, Matlab [message #23658]

Mon, 05 February 2001 23:58

Nathaniel Gray
Messages: 2
Registered: February 2001

Junior Member

Paul van Delst wrote:

> I've never used Python, and Matlab only once or twice, but what's with the
> Python syntax? Seems a tad wordy. Looks like Nick Bower's IDL-like package
> in Python (http://nickbower.com/computer/pydl) is worth another look
> though......

It's true that Numpy code can end up more verbose than Matlab, although
this example doesn't really hilight that issue. This is to be expected
from a language that wasn't designed from the ground up as a numerical
computing language. There's a faint glimmer of hope that we may get a new
Python operator for matrix multiplication, though. (See PEP 211)

On the flipside, have you ever tried to write user interfaces in Matlab?
Have you ever tried to implement a dictionary in Matlab? Have you ever
tried to understand when Matlab is making a copy of a giant array and when
it's using a reference? Have you ever had your Matlab license expire the
day of a meeting, _before_ you've made your plots?

I have. <shudder>

Having used IDL and Matlab quite extensively, I've realized that in any
moderately complex numerical program 75% of the code is *programming* and
only 25% of the code is *numerical*. I'd take a great general-purpose
language with decent numerical extensions over a decent language with great
numerical capabilities any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. :^)

> paulv
>
> P.S. BTW, in Matlab, how do you simply multiply the corresponding matrix
> elements? (i.e. not a matrix multiply).

mat1 .* mat2;

-n8

--
_.~'^`~._.~'^`~._.~'^`~._.~'^`~._.~'^`~._
Nathaniel Gray
California Institute of Technology
Computation and Neural Systems
n8gray <at> caltech <dot> edu
_.~'^`~._.~'^`~._.~'^`~._.~'^`~._.~'^`~._

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[Message index]

		Re: speed comparison of IDL, numPy, Matlab By: Nathaniel Gray on Mon, 05 February 2001 23:58
		Re: speed comparison of IDL, numPy, Matlab By: Nathaniel Gray on Mon, 05 February 2001 23:58
		Re: speed comparison of IDL, numPy, Matlab By: David Lees on Mon, 05 February 2001 21:44
		Re: speed comparison of IDL, numPy, Matlab By: Omur Bas on Mon, 05 February 2001 12:43
		Re: speed comparison of IDL, numPy, Matlab By: Paul van Delst on Mon, 05 February 2001 12:08

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