I will shortly be starting an electronics class, where we are being asked to do calculations in MatLab.
- I don't mind shelling out the 0 for MatLab, but I hear the license is extremely restrictive -- you have to keep the CD in the drive, plus you are supposed to stop using it once you are no longer taking the course, plus it's got the product registration stuff.
I frankly don't care, as a matter of moral principle, about violating the license -- I could fill a long essay with why those licenses are crap [no flames please, you are of course welcome to view matters differently than I do] -- but as a practical matter, is there any way for Mathworks to know if I am still using the product after I am no longer taking courses?
Also, if I want to eventually install the product on a newer computer, when I get rid of the current one, does Mathworks require some proof of student status? Because, in practice, there is no way I'm going to stop using the product once I stop taking classes -- so if Mathworks has a practical way to enforce this license, they can go to heck as far as I'm concerned.
- I looked at Octave, but that seems to run only on Linux, which doesn't do me any good. So I may want to try SciLab instead. My question is, at an elementary level -- and the class I'm taking deals with simulating elementary circuit functions -- is the language used by SciLab and MatLab the same? I'm not sure yet how we submit homework (this is a distance learning class), but if I have to submit a SciLab file to the professor, will that file be functional under MatLab? Again, we are talking pretty basic RLC circuits, very simple op-amp circuits, simple filters, simple simple simple, etc.
More generally, the goal is, even if I use SciLab, I want to know if, when I'm on a job, and they are using MatLab, my basic familiarity with SciLab will mean I'm also basically familiar with MatLab.
Thanks in advance for all replies.
CJ