Re:In Defense of Matlab Code
by fph on Wednesday December 17, 2025 @04:04AM
(#46299739)
What happens most of the time with unexperienced or distracted users is that they write things like `norm(S - T)` to compute how close two vectors are, but one of them is a row vector and the other is a column vector, so the result is silently completely wrong.
Matlab's functions like to create row vectors (e.g., linspace) in a world where column vectors are more common, so this is a common occurrence.
So `[1,2,3] + [4;5;6]` is a concise syntax for an uncommon operation, but unfortunately it is very similar to a frequent mistake for a much more common operation.
Julia tells the two operations (vector sum and outer sum) apart very elegantly: one is `S - T` and the other is `S .- T`: the dot here is very idiomatic and consistent with the rest of the syntax.
Matlab's functions like to create row vectors (e.g., linspace) in a world where column vectors are more common, so this is a common occurrence.
So `[1,2,3] + [4;5;6]` is a concise syntax for an uncommon operation, but unfortunately it is very similar to a frequent mistake for a much more common operation.
Julia tells the two operations (vector sum and outer sum) apart very elegantly: one is `S - T` and the other is `S .- T`: the dot here is very idiomatic and consistent with the rest of the syntax.