POLL: Prog language for research

[Sarevok]

What about LabVIEW?

[Rolander]

I do with scilab these days

[Mulan180]

I use starlogo

[yiannakop]

What about LabVIEW?

I have use this in the past (more than 4 years ago) for an audio application and I quite liked it. But if i remember correctly (and maybe I am not) it mostly has to do with signal processing measurement and control. But anyway, it is a really strong tool for researchers.

[nolxev]

I think the best way to go is Matlab not because it's Matlab, because to develop the ton of packages that Matlab provide require 200 man-years. If you need image processing algorithms you need 1 years to write that package before using it, and it's a very waste of time. As I know Matlab is written in C++ and use Java for interface.

I also give points to Fortran, it contains a dreadful mathematics knowledges library and it's possible write compilers that optimize better than other all languages (contrarily of Java where the optimizations are impossible).

[anantwakode]

I use C++.....................

-Anant

[Uggh]

Mathematica

[yiannakop]

I think the best way to go is Matlab not because it's Matlab, because to develop the ton of packages that Matlab provide require 200 man-years. If you need image processing algorithms you need 1 years to write that package before using it, and it's a very waste of time. As I know Matlab is written in C++ and use Java for interface.
.....

This is 100% true. And don't forget the tones of free code you can find on the net conserning methods\algorithms which are not bult-in matlab. There are 2 reasons for NOT to use matlab when dealing with signal\image processing, audio, video etc:
1. Speed. Though, some times if one is carefull enough matlab code can be optimized. And sometimes, (however strange it sounds) matlab is faster than C++. Some very basic functions (e.g. fft()) are optimized in such a level, that they are very - very fast. The major problem (in my opinion) conserning the matlab speed is that (as far as I know) there is not optimization for running in multi-threading enviroments.
2. Comercial Purposes. If one needs to implement sth for commercial purposes, then matlab is not the right solution. Of course, the subject of this thread is "prog language for research", so this is out of subject.

[nolxev]

I agree. It's also too slow the functions drawing, if you have ever drawn 3D functions it takes seconds to rotate the graph. I don't understand why they have not taken advantage of graphics acceleration.

[yiannakop]

I agree. It's also too slow the functions drawing, if you have ever drawn 3D functions it takes seconds to rotate the graph. I don't understand why they have not taken advantage of graphics acceleration.

This is true. And sometimes the mesh() function (for drawing 3-D functions) crashes... and plots nothing. But, you may find a solution to similar problems if you deal with the 3 rendering methods that matlab has. link here

[nolxev]

It could be useful thank you.