Programming/Software (Mathematica, MATLAB etc..)

[rife168]

I was just wondering if anyone could explain the sort of things that software such as Wolfram Mathematica, MATLAB etc. can do and what they are used for?

Would it be worth me learning to use any of this sort of software for leisure or is it quite task-specific?

Is there any sort of programming language or software which would be beneficial for me to learn for studying maths/physics at university? What do computational Astrophysicists use?

Thanks

[iamtom]

For maths/physics? MATLAB would be a good start, I guess. You can use any programming language for leisure, MATLAB I assume is no different. I don't use it so I don't know what they can do but I assume that MATLAB lets you do mathematical functions a lot easier than in, say, Java. A quick read of its Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATLAB) shows that it can be used for all sorts of nifty stuff.
 
As for what computational astrophysicists use, I would assume MATLAB/Mathematica/Maple/C/C++/Java/Python/Perl. It's kind of a broad question, it's like asking what type of pen do you use to write with. I'm pretty sure C/C++ are up there, though, maybe MATLAB too. I'm not really into computational science.

If you want to learn something, aim to learning C, you can't go wrong. But I wouldn't start with it - maybe start with Python or MATLAB and work your way up.

[mark_alec]

You will find that FORTRAN is used a lot in the physics community. I wouldn't recommend learning that for pleasure. C is also useful, but not much fun. Try python, it's easy and powerful and can teach you many different paradigms (declarative, object-oriented, functional).

[rife168]

Thanks guys, I've done some very basic stuff with python not long ago, I might get started again. Do you know of any good resources for learning python or any other languages? I was using the MIT OpenCourseWare Introduction to Computer Science video lectures.

Have any of you used Mathematica?

[Lasercookie]

Thanks guys, I've done some very basic stuff with python not long ago, I might get started again. Do you know of any good resources for learning python or any other languages? I was using the MIT OpenCourseWare Introduction to Computer Science video lectures.

Have any of you used Mathematica?

For Python:
Taking a look at these tutorials here are your best source: http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers
http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers (you might be better off with the first link). You might also have to take note if you're using Python 2.x or Python 3.x

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist has been updated for Python 3.x: http://thinkcspy.appspot.com/build/index.html

I found this book quite good when I was learning Python: http://hetland.org/writing/beginning-python-2/ - it's for Python 2.x though

Once you know the basics, the best thing to do is just play around with code and refer to docs.python.org

For Mathematica: I've only played around with it, there's heaps of stuff you can do with it. The Wolfram website is packed with tutorials and other stuff you can do with it.

[Mao]

Really depends on what you want to do. I use a lot of Mathematica, python, ruby and fortran.

For doing maths/physics, learning Mathematica will definitely help with everything. It is a very powerful visualizer (it can plot ANYTHING). It has a very powerful algebra engine. Overall, it is an excellent aid for doing assignments and pretty much everything. However, it is a terrible programming language.

As for python/ruby/MATLAB..., these are good scripting languages, which are useful in doing very repetitive things. (It's a bit harder to do this in Mathematica.) If you end up doing numerical methods and so on, you'll find yourself using one of these scripting language. MATLAB perhaps is the best way to start, as it has many in-built math functions. Python on the other hand, you must import modules and etc to get the math functionality.

When you get down to hardcore calculations, i.e. programs that will take days and days to run, you need to use FORTRAN or C, these are the fastest languages, but they are a bit clumsy to work with.

[VivaTequila]

Calculus assignments!

I was just wondering if anyone could explain the sort of things that software such as Wolfram Mathematica, MATLAB etc. can do and what they are used for?

Calc 1 assignments

[Gloamglozer]

I was just wondering if anyone could explain the sort of things that software such as Wolfram Mathematica, MATLAB etc. can do and what they are used for?

If you ever go to higher level mathematics, it can be used for graphing, probability simulations and definitely operations research (minimising and maximising objective functions).

[excal]

Bit of an old thread but I'll throw my two cents in.

If you're going to program for leisure, you need to think about using a language where you're not likely to tear your head out because of some arcane syntactical or semantic quirk and is mature enough so that you can do useful things with it.

For that reason, I'd recommend the Python and Ruby languages. They may be interpreted (and slow) but is close enough semantically to most languages (as mark_alec pointed out) and are easy enough to pick up so you won't drop it.

And if you need something faster, you'll have the skill base in knowing programming techniques generally (the ones that are universal to all languages within a certain paradigm) and algorithms to move to another language (like the .NET languages, or C++ if you're feeling daring)

[rife168]

Thanks guys, for what it's worth, I've been working with Python and in particular the VPython module, it's great fun.
Also I've been working through the MIT Intro to Computer Science & Programming course through OpenCourseWare.