The Mex Express: Fill & Download for Free

Don’t. Use numpy/python instead. My friend wrote this up, but I’ve used matlab as much as he has and I agree with it all.I’ve worked with MatLab a lot, and I definitely would not recommend it. The main reason is that MatLab does all of its matrix stuff using LAPACK as the backend. Python’s Numpy, Mathematica, and everyone else already does this for you, so there isn’t any benefit there. I would say the only reason to get a matlab licence is because everyone else is using it for your project. If you just need to run one or two scripts just use GNU Octave – it’s a FLOSS version of MatLab that is a drop in replacement.Here’s my rant on things that suck in MatLab I’ve run into:Arrays are 1 indexed and ranges are inclusiveThis is super annoying because every language is 0 indexed with exclusive upper end ranges. It’s more intuitive for non-programmers as a bonus, but it’s super annoying when every time instead ofint i = 0;while (i < 10) {you have to doa = 1;while a < 11which seems minor, but it will bite you in the ass at the worst times.Inconsistent and nonsensical syntaxIn most languages you do something like myList[5] to access element 5 of an array. Matlab instead chooses to use myList(6) (1-indexing remember), which is a fine choice to use—it’s just a syntax difference. The problem comes from the fact that applies only for MatLab arrays. MatLab cell objects (which are like python lists) have you access items using myCellArrayThing{6} syntax. This is frustrating because function calls use normal parentheses.Matlab uses the same syntax for accessing elements and for evaluating functions, leading to all kinds of zaniness. If you’re reading MatLab code and you see ones(5) you can’t tell right away if it’s accessing item 5 of a vector or calling a function on the value 5. This compounds with the fact that implicit type conversion means that some functions like strcat return cells (that use the ‘{}’ syntax) or vectors (using the ‘()’ syntax), so you can get errors that way.Global namespaceThere is only one global namespace that everything sits in. This compounds the problem I mentioned above because if you load or save a workspace it is way too easy to have collisions.Non expression-based syntax is very limitingIf you a vector x and you want to get the sine of element 4, you think you would be able to do something like y = sin(x)(5) because the sin(x) would get replaced by the return type. This is not the case usually, forcing you to instead do tmp = sin(x); y = tmp(5). This is not only annoying and hard to read. It also means that more memory must be allocated for tmp and y that the JIT can’t optimise out.Functions do way too muchWhen you want to check that a file exists you call exist('my_file') By default this actually checks that the file you’re looking for is a file in the cwd, a file with any MatLab extension in any current MatLab path, or any Java class file.When you write functions they need to have their own fileFor the most part when you make a MatLab function it actually needs to be in the appropriately named .m file. The project I was recently working on had 188 .m files that each contained different functions.The Mex FFI sucksWriting mex files (the way to get MatLab to talk to C) is a lot of ridiculous boiler plate and error checking. Although actually just writing any useful MatLab function at all requires that.Check out this function: http://mooring.ucsd.edu/software/matlab/mfiles/toolbox/geo/private/azimuth.mThe business logic is like 5% of that code, the rest is handling all of the crazy ways to call it.Function calls use a lot of memoryWhen you do something like y = sin(x) you expect that new memory is allocated for y. When you do x = sin(x) you hope that it just operates on x in place, taking the pointer or something. In sensible languages like python or C you always know or can look up if this is what is happening or not, but in MatLab you can’t actually know if x = sin(x) assigns new memory for x, points x to the result, and waits for the old x to be garbage collected or not.The reason I know this is because in this blog by a MathWorks staffer, she says she had to empirically find out whether operations occur in place or not.MathWorks doesn’t actually know how their own product worksAs mentioned the link above they don’t actually keep a list for which programs do pointless, expensive memory allocation or not. Instead they just try to fix functions to do in-place operations whenever they stumble across ones that don’t.Their product changes very quicklyWhile people still complain about python 2 vs python 3, even though they’re mostly interoperable, ship with version conversion programs, and aren’t that different, MatLab changes pretty quickly. For example I found out that strncmp (to compare strings) only accepted arrays of characters in the 2015a version, but in the 2017a version I had they accept any kind of strings or character arrays. The reason I found this out was because my code broke when I tried to run it on the 2015 version and I had to go in and change and fix a bunch of stuff.In case that isn’t enoughWhile I was writing this email I accidentally stumbled across this site: MATLAB is a terrible programming languageThe guy actually says a lot of the points I did, but better.

Play the blues, brother!Stevie was an expressive, melodic, explosive blues player. He could play in the Delta, City, or Tex-mex styles. He would start simple, finished strong, always. Super tasty.Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. But the notes that you do play, make ‘em count. One of my favorite Vaughan solos is “Cold Shot”. I was one of the engineers at the CBS Record Convention in Hawaii, where Stevie Ray and the Fabulous Thunderbirds played with Jeff Beck, Paul Young, Cindi Lauper and Scandal. We recorded them all in two nights. Bootlegs of it are starting to hit the Internet. He was awesome, played like a champ. Beck was good too, they jammed. It was so cool.Just keep it simple. Playin the blues is emotional, it comes from the soul. I always loved imagining being in an old, rundown place. Smoke in the air, people drinking, down in the Deep South. Hot, sweaty, stuffy. But not like a rock club. This is the Delta. This is where you learn to play the blues…

Actually, it depends on what type of cuisine you are in the mood for! However, there are lots of inexpensive haunts that you can check out most days of the week. I suggest the following if you are feeling Chinese, then Mr. Chen’s or Pho Thanh My are super choices for a nice variety of dishes at an economical price including some items for two.If you want south of the border or Tex-Mex taste you might consider Ristorante Eliella or any of the numerous places that have grown in Southwest Little Rock and beyond. For Soul Food, there’s David’s Family Kitchen and Kitchen Express that can get you a lump of blue plate meat and two choices. If you want it cheap, there’s either a local space or food truck can handle your order!