Well, one context that I left out was that the course was pretty simple. We learned some basic loops, graphing, matrix operations, and writing some basic scripts to solve some problems. If you need a higher level functionality, then you’d probably struggle with GNU Octave, I don’t know.

So it can be done, simple as that.

I’ve just discovered Thonny! I’m not sure of the exact advantages over just vanilla Python though. Maybe because it’s an IDE.

It really depends on the course, but I think for general undergrad stuff, Python should be capable for most things.

As another commentor said, it kinda depends on what is the purpose of the course. If the purpose was to actually teach you the MATLAB ecosystem, then yea, sure, teach it all you want, but the institution has to provide the software.

But for an intro course? The students should probably be able to just use what they want.

Yeah, then other languages should be allowed as well.

I agree with that. It’s similar to Photoshop or Premier Pro. Sure, you could maybe, perhaps use open-source alternatives. But you’ll have to get used to a different set of (usually separate) software, dissimilar to what people all over the world uses.

Even though I’m generally for open-source software, I know that in heavy duty use, highly niche specialisations, and in industries in general it’s difficult to find equally competent software. That’s why I put emphasize on my specific situation, where it’s an introductory course. Heck, we ended up doing what could be done in Python anyway.

I’m not sure what would have happened had I insisted. I imagine that they’d probably ask us to obtain it on our own though, based on my memory that they were insistent that everybody must have it.

I see. That’s a bit rough that we require proprietary software to graduate.

I think that’s ideal! It’s supposed to be a lesson on numerical methods, not MATLAB.

I’m not sure how it works in the US but where I’m from, the way lessons are conducted are typically like this:

1. Professors hand out lecture notes, typically in the PDF format. So, students will either print or just use their phones/laptops to follow along the lectures. It’s either this way, OR
2. Professors will list out recommended readings for this course, and it’s up to you how you obtain the source material. Most people will probably just download the PDFs and take down notes during lectures.
3. We were never required to buy any books.

So I’m personally unfamiliar with the “shilling” of textbooks which cost up to hundreds of dollars for practically the same content, which, from what I’ve heard, is quite common in US colleges. This seems to be a very strange concept to me.

Yea of course but we’re talking about piracy, so when we pirate proprietary software, they’ll of object with “nothing is free, you gotta pay”. It’s either we pay for that, or fundamentally uphold piracy as some means or some ends, or use and support open-source software. Not a lot of choices, really.

I think I get that as well. I used to talk quite a bit about open-source to my friends, but looking back, it seemed quite preachy (maybe because I was quite young at the time), and it never really changed anything. This is especially the case since open-source (or free software) is a philosophical approach to technology that many people might be unfamiliar with or simply don’t care about. I just simply use open-source software, supports devs/foundations, and only will talk the necessary bits if someone asks me about it.

I mentioned it to a couple of friends, but I think I didn’t get it across well to them that GNU Octave is supposed to be syntactically compatible with MATLAB. Also, they’re more comfortable using established software since everybody else is using them anyway.

Speaking about numerical analysis courses, I feel like one should be able to choose what programming languages they wish; the course should just aim to teach the fundamentals/principles of numerical methods, not what language to use. I get that it is much more convenient to streamline software choice, but still, why not use Python over MATLAB for undergraduate introductory courses?

I’m not sure about that since I’m not in any field that requires MATLAB at the moment. However, my specific case is for undergraduate introductory courses, and perhaps even at schools. To go even beyond this conversation a bit, any numerical / computational / algorithmic principles should probably be taught using Python. I had another numerical methods course where students can use any language they want, either C or C++ or Python. So I know it’s possible.

I agree with that. It’s much easier streamlining software choice rather than letting people choose their own alternatives, since it’s a mess to integrate workflows and all that.

My issue is that we’re basically forced to pirate for an introductory course, where I actually don’t even think it’s necessary to use MATLAB. You can use GNU Octave or even Python. It’s quite frustrating.

It’s $1K per head?

I’ve seen people mention this before. This will be troublesome if you require massive computing speed, otherwise it is still acceptable, since you’re basically using a MATLAB clone.

What do you say to people that maintains the POV that it’s theft?