MATLAB Tutorial Video 06 : Is MATLAB Programming Easy to Learn?

This is video 06 of the MATLAB TUTORIAL IN 1 HOUR programming playlist.

Use this link to download the ZIP file that has all the MATLAB files and other resources for this free 1 HOUR MATLAB video series.

Keywords:
Matlab programming, Easy Matlab programming, Fighter plane dynamics, Modeling the longitudinal dynamics of a fighter plane, First order coupled differential equations in Matlab, Matlab for beginners, Matlab for science and engineering, Matlab for life sciences, Matlab free video course, Matlab free tutorial

In this video, we are trying to answer the question :” Is Matlab Programming Easy to Learn”? My answer is a definite YES. Here are my reasons.

It is easy to get started in Matlab. You install Matlab, you fire it up and you are ready to go.
You can start solving problems from right from the command line from the get go.

There is no need to install compilers or linkers to create executables. Neither is the need for installing any additional libraries for performing floating point math or special libraries for trigonometric, logarithmic or matrix operations. It is all part of standard Matlab. Likewise, you don’t need to install special libraries for plotting. The standard Matlab installation comes with an extremely powerful plotting library preinstalled. You can do a lot of scientific and engineering modeling, do sophisticated analysis on your data and produce professional grade plots very quickly.

Matlab is an interpreted language and NOT a compiled language. This means, when you press the RUN button, the Matlab script is almost instantaneously executed. There is no need to compile and link your code to create an executable.

Next thing is that Matlab code is very human readable. I would say that Matlab coding mostly resembles C programming in syntax. So, it is not super difficult to pick up.

Next on my list is the superb help system. You type help on the command window and Matlab comes up with very good info on the syntax and suggestions for using Matlab commands in practice. Matlab documentation is a great tool to learn Matlab programming as you go. In addition, you have the support system from MathWorks like Matlab Central and Matlab File Exchange where you get to see well written Matlab freeware and community toolboxes from experts. Some of the examples are truly advanced. Check it out.

I talked so far about the ease of using Matlab. This does not mean Matlab is a simplistic programming system. In fact, it is just the opposite. Matlab is an extremely powerful scientific and engineering programming package. Even complex models and simulations can be created in Matlab quickly and efficiently.

As an example, I am taking you through the complete model setup for the fighter plane longitudinal dynamics that we talked about in video # 1.

This is a reasonably complex problem. This whole modeling above and the solution for the matrix differential equation can be obtained with a few lines of Matlab code

Don’t worry if you don’t fully understand the math behind the above example. The point here is that a fairly non-trivial modeling and analysis task could be accomplished really fast in Matlab.
That is the power and elegance of Matlab!

If you found this video useful, please like and subscribe. This will support the channel. Also I welcome your comments and feedback. Thanks for watching.

MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks.