Matlab 6.1

Rating:
Summary: Matlab once again wins hearts of Professionals
Review: My acquaintance with matlab started with its Dos version. It is now even more flexible, versatile than ever before. Using it is a cinch. What is wonderful about matlab is it turns your attention away from programming and into engineering. With matlab engineers win and programmers lose.

I would say that without matlab, you can go far in engineering only if you are willing to work hard in c++. That is not easy, neither is it necessary for all engineers. Try it out with couple of good engineering books in your area you will appreciate the power matlab brings to visualize and solve engineering problems.

Rating:
Summary: The ultimate mathematical programming tool for scientists
Review: This is the ultimate mathematical programming tool for scientists all over the world. The changes in version 6.0 make this user-friendly suite of programs even easier to use than it ever was before. The documentation is very good, and there is a very active user-forum that constantly contributes to its development.

Although it's a mathematical tool designed for specific applications, you have a multitude of customized programming toolboxes tailored for various fields of science. Thus, even if you use it for enginnering or mathematics, you don't have to spend money for a new language for statistics or economics. It's much easier to learn toolboxes within the same language than buy and learn a new very expensive language that is applicable for the given field only.

Moreover, the latest developments in version 6.0 include financial toolboxes for stock and money markets time series analysis. Subroutines are very, very well documented. Even if pure programming languages like C++ or the new C# are universal, they are not tailored to treating matrices dynamically, as Matlab is. Very recommended.