Octave. . . I'm doing a Coursera class that uses it right now, and I've got mixed feelings about it. I want to love it. I do love it; it's a great piece of software. Couldn't say how it compares to Matlab, which I've never used, but for my needs it's a really nice tool.
However, out of the box it seemed to have two modes which it would switch between at random:
1. Hang when the user tries to draw a plot.
2. Crash repeatedly.
Eventually I did get it working by fiddling with the (way overcomplicated) installer until I stumbled across just the right set of features to play nice on my computer. Which is fine for me. . . but anything that's going to be used in a real classroom needs a MUCH more refined Windows package to be a viable candidate for most schools.
the MATLAB language is pretty poorly designed, in my opinion. take for example the use of abbreviated function names.
everything in Mathematica (including graphics and UI) is described using the structure of the Mathematica language itself. the whole system is malleable/composable to a degree that few languages approach
for example:
Nest[Button, "hello", 5]
will create a nesting of 5 buttons. that's the same Nest you would use when nesting a function:
Nest[# + 1 &, 2, 5]
And neither of these are hacks, they both work under the same exact rules, because:
However, out of the box it seemed to have two modes which it would switch between at random:
Eventually I did get it working by fiddling with the (way overcomplicated) installer until I stumbled across just the right set of features to play nice on my computer. Which is fine for me. . . but anything that's going to be used in a real classroom needs a MUCH more refined Windows package to be a viable candidate for most schools.