Matlab, Scilab, Octave, R, etc

[RizzoTheRat]

I used Matlab and Simulink years ago at uni but am now interested in getting to grips with that kind of product for data analysis and possibly some system dynamics modelling without shelling out a fortune on licences before I know if it's actually worth learning rather than just using Excel/VBA. On first glance Scilab seems to make sense as Xcos will let me look at some systems dynamics modelling whereas I don't know of any equivalents for Octave or R.

Anyone know much about these and able to offer any thoughts?

[RobM77]

I used Matlab extensively when I worked as a mathematical modeller back in 1999/2000, and I'd recommend it for that, although I never really gelled with it for data analysis if I'm honest.

[V8LM]

R is free and can do most of what you want, although takes some getting used to (although with a MatLab background you should fair better than most).

Edited by V8LM on Friday 21st October 14:49

[RizzoTheRat]

I wouldn't really say I had a Matlab background, my main memory was failing to work out how to use it an plot outputs in Uniras (or something like that) and programming my own analysis and graphics in Fortran 77

[ATG]

Might be worth having a look at Python using numpy, scipy, pandas, matplotlib. Enthought python distribution is worth checking out. There are bridges to R and apis for Spark if you want to do big data