In Defense of Matlab Code

4 days ago

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MATLAB is often dismissed by modern software engineers but remains prevalent in top aerospace, automotive, and medical device R&D departments.
MATLAB excels in making code look like the math on the whiteboard, which is crucial for linear algebra, signal processing, and control theory.
Whiteboard-style code features high density, visual similarity to equations, and low boilerplate, reducing translation loss from whiteboard to executable logic.
MATLAB's syntax allows senior engineers to verify math without getting bogged down by implementation details, making code review a safety feature.
High-level array syntax in MATLAB not only aids human readability but also provides optimization signals for runtimes and compilers.
Criticism of MATLAB stems from its closed-source runtime, licensing issues, and poor integration with modern cloud and CI/CD workflows.
The solution is to preserve MATLAB's syntax while building a modern, open, hardware-agnostic, and portable runtime.
RunMat is a new runtime designed to execute MATLAB-style syntax with modern performance and cloud integration, addressing traditional licensing and portability issues.

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