[Sir Brass]

THis is pointless. They're treating MATLAB like an overpowered graphing calcuator. That's NOT what it was meant for. MATLAB really shines when you're doing control system modeling, signal analysis, and other matrix-based problems/models (like systems of equations).

For example. When I took DSP, one of our assignments was to take a "dialer" program (you'd change the #'s you wanted dialed in the script file) that would, when run, play the touch-tone phone tones of the #'s you wanted dialed, and then save the output to a file. We were to take THAT output file (we were given the dialer program already written. and the output file was the audio waveform) and using matlab, decode what numbers where dialed. Basically it was practice using comb filters and resonators to figure out what row and column frequencies occurred WHEN, and based on that, interpret which button was pressed, and thus determine which number was dialed when.

THAT is good use of matlab. It's a very powerful tool when used like it was meant to be used. It's NOT meant to be used as an overpowered graphing calculator. It's a bit complex for that. But for high level problems, the complexity is NOTHING and it's simple to write a script file that does the math, solution analysis and graphing all in one run.