MATLAB is a high-level language and interactive programming environment for numerical computation and visualization developed by MathWorks. Don’t use both the [matlab] and [octave] tags, unless the question is explicitly about the similarities or differences between the two. When using this tag, please mention the MATLAB release you're working with (e.g. R2017a).
MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory) is a high-level language and interactive programming environment for numerical computation and visualization, developed by MathWorks. MATLAB can be used when performing tasks such as signal processing and communications, image and video processing, computational finance, and computational biology. It is the foundation for a number of other tools, including Simulink and various toolboxes that extend its core capabilities.
MATLAB is a cross-platform system developed since 1984. From the release of version 7.2 (R2006a) there has continued to be a biannual release cycle, with version "a" typically released in March/April and version "b" in September/October - based on the release history. For example R2017a and R2017b were the two releases in 2017.
MATLAB is a proprietary product of MathWorks. This means that, unlike open source languages, both programmers and users must own a valid software license in order to run MATLAB code.
There are several open source alternatives to MATLAB, in particular GNU Octave, which offers (mostly) bidirectional syntactic compatibility with MATLAB, Scilab, SciPy, and Julia.
Documentation
- MATLAB documentation for the most recent version.
- Archived documentation for prior versions (only available to licensed users)
Informative links that show up quite often in answers##
- Release notes for all versions.
- MATLAB Central File Exchange: a repository of user-contributed MATLAB tools
- MATLAB Add-Ons: Add-Ons for MATLAB
- MATLAB Central blogs: usually updated weekly by a number of MathWorks employees
- Undocumented MATLAB: "Charting MATLAB’s unsupported hidden underbelly"
- MATLAB Answers: a collaborative environment for getting answers to questions about MathWorks products, similar to Stack Overflow
- comp.soft-sys.matlab Usenet group: can be accessed online through Google Groups
- MATLAB Cody™ is a place where you can go to find a variety of MATLAB-based coding challenges that will help to expand your understanding of MATLAB.
- MATLAB ThingSpeak™ is an open data platform and API for the Internet of Things that enables you to collect, store, analyze, visualize, and act on data gathered directly from sensors or from other web sources. With ThingSpeak and its built-in MATLAB Analysis and MATLAB Visualizations apps, you can create custom trends and plots.
- MATLAB Online: Online version of MATLAB (available to licensed users only). Octave Online is a free alternative based on the open source GNU Octave which is (pretty much) compatible with MATLAB.
- MATLAB on Stack Overflow chat: Chat room for users of MATLAB and Octave
