1. Introduction to MATLAB Northeastern University: College of Computer and Information Science Co-op Preparation University (CPU) 10/20/2003

2. Overview for 10/20/2003 Contact Information Course Overview MATLAB Overview Handouts

3. Contact Information Bill Mason wmason@ccs.neu.edu “Office Hours” –Wednesday after class: 7pm - ?

4. Contact Information, con’t: 2 Additional “Office Hours” –By appointment: E-mail Speak to me in class –May be requested in a handout to be passed out later Information also available on handout

5. Contact Information, con’t: 3 Course website: –http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/wmason –Information also will be contained on website (Not currently up, expect mostly finalized this weekend)

6. Course Overview Course Structure Meeting Times and Locations Coursework

7. Course Structure Spread over 3 weeks 3 classes per week 1 hour per class

8. Course Structure, con’t: 2 Week 1: Overview of MATLAB –History of MATLAB –Overview of MATLAB environment –Discussion of MATLAB in co-op Week 2: Basic MATLAB –Simple MATLAB functionality Syntax, Commands –Exercises involving basic MATLAB functionality

9. Course Structure, con’t: 3 Week 3: Advanced MATLAB Functionality –Beyond MATLAB as a calculator –The MATLAB programming language –Project showcasing MATLABs advanced functionality

10. Meeting Times and Locations Week 1 –Class 1 Monday, Oct. 20, 6 - 7 p.m., 257 CN –Class 2 Wednesday, Oct. 22, 6 - 7 p.m., 257 CN –Class 3 Thursday, Oct. 23, 6 - 7 p.m., 247 CN

11. Meeting Times and Locations, con’t: 2 Week 2 –Class 1 Monday, Oct. 27, 6 - 7 p.m., 257 CN –Class 2 Wednesday, Oct. 29, 6 - 7 p.m., 257 CN –Class 3 Thursday, Oct. 30, 6 - 7 p.m., 247 CN

12. Meeting Times and Locations, con’t: 3 Week 3 –Class 1 Monday, Nov. 3, 6 - 7 p.m., 257 CN –Class 2 Wednesday, Nov. 5, 6 - 7 p.m., 257 CN –Class 3 Thursday, Nov. 6, 6 - 7 p.m., 247 CN

13. Meeting Times and Locations, con’t: 4 Miscellaneous –Thursday classes listed as 247 CN Meet there, then go to the labs (257 CN) –Attendance Attend as many sessions as possible Let me know if you have any conflicts Lecture slides will be posted on the website

14. Coursework Most important part of the course Will take place mostly during class sessions 2 major assignments, a collection of several exercises and a larger project

15. Coursework, con’t: 2 Collection of exercises: –Will occur during the second week –Will involve MATLABs basic functionality Final project: –Will occur during the final two sessions –Will cover MATLABs basic and advanced functionality

16. MATLAB Overview What is MATLAB? History of MATLAB –Who developed MATLAB –Why MATLAB was developed –Who currently maintains MATLAB Strengths of MATLAB Weaknesses of MATLAB

17. What is MATLAB? MATLAB –MATrix LABoratory –Interactive system Will be covered during week 2 –Programming language Will be covered during week 3

18. What is MATLAB con’t: 2 Considering MATLAB at home –Standard edition Available for roughly 2 thousand dollars –Student edition Available for roughly 1 hundred dollars. Some limitations, such as the allowable size of a matrix

19. History of MATLAB Ancestral software to MATLAB –Fortran subroutines for solving linear (LINPACK) and eigenvalue (EISPACK) problems –Developed primarily by Cleve Moler in the 1970’s

20. History of MATLAB, con’t: 2 Later, when teaching courses in mathematics, Moler wanted his students to be able to use LINPACK and EISPACK without requiring knowledge of Fortran MATLAB developed as an interactive system to access LINPACK and EISPACK

21. History of MATLAB, con’t: 3 MATLAB gained popularity primarily through word of mouth because it was not officially distributed In the 1980’s, MATLAB was rewritten in C with more functionality (such as plotting routines)

22. History of MATLAB, con’t: 4 The Mathworks, Inc. was created in 1984 The Mathworks is now responsible for development, sale, and support for MATLAB The Mathworks is located in Natick, MA The Mathworks is an employer that hires co-ops through our co-op program

23. Strengths of MATLAB MATLAB is relatively easy to learn MATLAB code is optimized to be relatively quick when performing matrix operations MATLAB may behave like a calculator or as a programming language MATLAB is interpreted, errors are easier to fix Although primarily procedural, MATLAB does have some object-oriented elements

24. Weaknesses of MATLAB MATLAB is NOT a general purpose programming language MATLAB is an interpreted language (making it for the most part slower than a compiled language such as C++) MATLAB is designed for scientific computation and is not suitable for some things (such as parsing text)

25. End