if you wanna work for Google you better know... MATLAB? WTF?!

Lazar

Lazar

Phineas Packard
#2
#2
nah the cool kids only use octave and scilab .... wait.

In other news I read this on /. and a google employee reckons R gets used a heap more than matlab.
 
TheEcologist

TheEcologist

Global Moderator
#3
#3
That post is one of the most obvious advertisements I have ever seen. They get paid to do these things you know.

R overtook mathlab on most index listings years ago, here one (job listings):



But it's really field specific, in some fields mathlab still dominates and in those fields if you want to be able to work with your peers... you just have to mathlab. It's like using MS word in ecology, it sucks so much compared to latex, but I still need a copy on my VM to work with my peers (though I'm now using markdown + pandoc, on the documents when I am first author).

Having R in your skill bag is generally better than having MatLab in your skill bag (if we only look at job requirements), and this will become increasingly the case in the future. However, better than having just R in your skill set, try including stuff like Python, C++ or Java. Don't bother with Matlab, if you don't already know how to use it.
 
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Dragan

Dragan

Super Moderator
#4
#4
The answer is simple. Use "whatever" it takes to get the specific task you're trying to accomplish in the most computationally efficient manner as you can....I use Mathematica, SPSS, Minitab, SAS, Fortran, MatLab, S-Plus (Tibco-Spotfire), etc. In short, be conversant with the available mathematical/statistical software packages that are available.
 
victorxstc

victorxstc

Pirate
#6
#6
Matlab is easy with extremely helpful error reports and warnings, and very easy to learn. It has libraries that handle things like image processing and signal processing, much better than all other C++ and C# libraries I have personally tested (a lot). I think Google needs signal processing very seriously. So no wonder Matlab is considered a priority for Google engineers, despite its very slow and painful process speed.
 
Dragan

Dragan

Super Moderator
#9
#9
spunky said:
THANKS PEEPZ!!!

but i still don't like the fact that SAS is so high up on that chart TE posted... :/
Click to expand...
Spunky: I would say that SAS rates high for a number of reasons:

(I) It's not limited in terms of the number of variables and cases like, say, SPSS

(ii) It's very useful in the context of managing large data sets e.g., in Medicine where you can have thousands of variables

(iii) It's very good for data manipulation and formatting

(iv) It's as much a programming language as it is a statistical software package

(v) The support manuals are very detailed with useful examples.

So there's five reasons.
 
spunky

spunky

Can't make spagetti
#10
#10
Dragan said:
Spunky: I would say that SAS rates high for a number of reasons:

(I) It's not limited in terms of the number of variables and cases like, say, SPSS

(ii) It's very useful in the context of managing large data sets e.g., in Medicine where you can have thousands of variables

(iii) It's very good for data manipulation and formatting

(iv) It's as much a programming language as it is a statistical software package

(v) The support manuals are very detailed with useful examples.
Click to expand...
with the exception of maybe (v) (and i guess that could be argued), R does all that with the added benefit that it is... you know... FREE! :D

so i guess my point was why R isn't ranked higher than SAS?! :(
 
Dragan

Dragan

Super Moderator
#11
#11
spunky said:
with the exception of maybe (v) (and i guess that could be argued), R does all that with the added benefit that it is... you know... FREE! :D

so i guess my point was why R isn't ranked higher than SAS?! :(
Click to expand...
Easy....because R isn't as "trusted" as much as SAS is.
 
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