Comments on: Why is Matlab the best language for data mining? (cont’d) http://www.dataminingblog.com/why-is-matlab-the-best-language-for-data-mining-contd/ Data mining crossroads - research, applications, news, list of blogs and customized search engine about data mining. Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:13:32 +0200 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://www.dataminingblog.com/why-is-matlab-the-best-language-for-data-mining-contd/comment-page-1/#comment-557 Anonymous Wed, 25 Jul 2007 08:36:00 +0000 http://www.dataminingblog.com/why-is-matlab-the-best-language-for-data-mining-contd#comment-557 Hey buddy! Nice blog that you maintain here.. I just chanced upon your blog surfing the blogosphere. I was thinking.. you could try out some interesting widgets on your page and spice it up with some great pictures. E.g try out the poster widget on http://www.widgetmate.com with your relevant keywords. It has some of the best images i have ever seen. Hey buddy! Nice blog that you maintain here.. I just chanced upon your blog surfing the blogosphere. I was thinking.. you could try out some interesting widgets on your page and spice it up with some great pictures. E.g try out the poster widget on http://www.widgetmate.com with your relevant keywords. It has some of the best images i have ever seen.

]]> By: Will Dwinnell http://www.dataminingblog.com/why-is-matlab-the-best-language-for-data-mining-contd/comment-page-1/#comment-556 Will Dwinnell Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:46:00 +0000 http://www.dataminingblog.com/why-is-matlab-the-best-language-for-data-mining-contd#comment-556 For some time, MATLAB has been saddled with an undeserved reputation for being slow. I'll make the following points:<br/><br/><b>1. Depends on application:</b> If the code does things which MATLAB is good at (numerical array manipulation, for example), then MATLAB tends to be faster, sometimes even faster than hand-built code in other "faster" languages. See, for instance, the answer given by Big Toe (Mtl) at:<br/><br/><a HREF="http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah9J4k.oCd8JGrayQ5RIeYkjzKIX?qid=20070712065933AAlwIJG" REL="nofollow">How slow is Matlab?!?</a><br/><br/><b>2. Depends on code:</b> Code which takes advantage MATLAB features such as vectorization will execute faster than otherwise. This can make an enormous difference.<br/><br/><b>3. Programmer time, readability and maintainability count, too.</b> In a field like data mining, in which operations are performed across entire arrays of data, MATLAB can be easier to write, understand and modify. The lines-of-code ratio from MATLAB to many procedural and OO languages has to be 10-to-1. Elimination of loops, alone, will make an enormous difference. Leveraging built-in MATLAB functions will improve programming on all of these counts.<br/><br/>In conclusion, I will say that, for some applications, MATLAB will not be the fastest-executing choice, but this will not (nearly) always be the case. For some time, MATLAB has been saddled with an undeserved reputation for being slow. I’ll make the following points:

1. Depends on application: If the code does things which MATLAB is good at (numerical array manipulation, for example), then MATLAB tends to be faster, sometimes even faster than hand-built code in other “faster” languages. See, for instance, the answer given by Big Toe (Mtl) at:

How slow is Matlab?!?

2. Depends on code: Code which takes advantage MATLAB features such as vectorization will execute faster than otherwise. This can make an enormous difference.

3. Programmer time, readability and maintainability count, too. In a field like data mining, in which operations are performed across entire arrays of data, MATLAB can be easier to write, understand and modify. The lines-of-code ratio from MATLAB to many procedural and OO languages has to be 10-to-1. Elimination of loops, alone, will make an enormous difference. Leveraging built-in MATLAB functions will improve programming on all of these counts.

In conclusion, I will say that, for some applications, MATLAB will not be the fastest-executing choice, but this will not (nearly) always be the case.

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