Tag: IPython

An improved Matlab command line (plus Jupyter Notebooks for Matlab)

The command line is a large part of any Matlab user’s workflow. This vital tool, however, isn’t as user friendly as it should be: it’s cumbersome to recall multi-line commands from the history, there’s no support for Vim key bindings, and there’s no syntax highlighting if using the nodesktop option (on a remote computer, say). Fortunately, there’s an alternative that avoids these problems: IMatlab. This kernel also lets you run Matlab code in Jupyter Notebooks (originally known as IPython Notebooks).

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Invest in a good text editor

Scientists should invest time in a good text editor: pay the upfront cost of learning to use and customising a single editor for all of your text needs. This may be obvious to programmers, but less so to scientists who may have yet to recognise the benefits of a good editor.

Much scientific analysis and documentation can be achieved with plain text files (e.g., .py, .m, .f, .r, .tex, or .md). The default method to work with multiple file types is to use multiple IDEs (Integrated Development Environments): Matlab for m-files, Spyder or IPython notebooks for python scripts, TexStudio or TeXnicCenter for latex files, RStudio for R, or one of the countless editors for Markdown currently available.

Using a single editor has many benefits over using a range of editors within each IDE:

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