How MATLAB Is Different from Other Programming Languages

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1. MATLAB support command style (like Linux terminal commands). This means that you do not have to use parentheses when you call some functions, instead, you can use spaces to separate a function and its arguments. And when an argument of a function is string, you do not have to use single quotation mark when you call the function using command style. When a function does not take any arguments, you can call the function by parentheses with nothing in or you can ignore the parentheses and just use the name function to call it. For example, to generate a rand number between 0 and 1, you can use rand() or you can simply use rand. This is much more convenient compared to many other languages. e.g. R However, the support not as seamless as Ruby (in which you can use command style and function style freely). Not all functions in MATLAB have command versions, and usually you cannot use command version of functions in user-defined functions. (not very sure whether you can use it in m file or not, check it later.)

2. In most languages (e.g. ,C++, Java, SAS, etc), it is required that you end a statement with ;. In some other languages (e.g., R), it does not matter much (if write multiple statements on a line in R, ; can be used to separate them). In MATLAB, you are not required to put a ; at the end of a statement. However, it is recommneded that you use ; at the end of each statement, otherwise the result of the statument will be printed out to the console.

3. The normal MATLAB statements are continued on new line by putting three dots (...), which is different from other popular languages. Many programming languages allows you to start a new line freely, e.g. ,C++, Java, etc. R allows one to start a new line if no ambiguity is introduced. Three dots (...) is often used in other languages (e.g., R and C++11) for variadic functions.

4. Though MATLAB support multiple styles of syntax, its syntax is still more strict than the syntax of R, which make it more efficient in the cost of convenience.

5. MATLAB use \(\sim\) to stand for logical NOT, which is different from most of other languages. Usually a programming language uses NOT, !, or $<>$ to stand for logical NOT. See a summary on operators in different programming languages in this post.

6. MATLAB uses disp to display text of array to the console, which is different from most other programming languages. Most programming languages use functions/routines/methods related to words print (printf, print, println, etc) and write (write, writeln, etc) to print message to the standout put of a file.

7. In other programming languages, you have packages (e.g. Java, Mathematica and R), libraries (e.g. C). In MATLAB, a similar concept which is called toolbox, however, it is not exactly the same as packages or libraries in other languages. You can use functions in a toolbox as long as the toolbox is installed. In R, you have to first load a package in order to use functions in it (or you have to full name of the function).

8. To use strings in MATLAB, you must use single quotation marks, which is different from many other languages. For example, in C/C++ and Java, you have to use double quotation marks; in languages which have Linux blood (e.g., R, Python, Bash and so on), you can use either double or single quotation marks (though there might be slight difference between single and double quotations).

9. MATLAB is not completely case sensitive. MATLAB is case sensitive for variable names and built-in functions. For scripts and functions stored in a MATLAB file with a .m extension, case sensitivity is preserved on UNIX platforms but not on Windows platforms.

10. Loops in MATLAB is faster than loops in R.