Matlab Ruined my C
Matlab, I really love you, but sometimes you are just too easy. I think this happens to just about everyone at some point. After working with C/C++ quite frequently several years ago, I could program pretty well without any major hiccups. In recent times however, I have become too accustomed to Matlab’s propensity to forgive programming errors and shortcuts. This week, I began to embed C code into my Simulink real-time model - what a disaster. Suddenly I need to declare variables, place a semicolon at the end of every line, and don’t even get me started on Cstrings (they’re arrays!!??)
Right, so an experienced C coder reading this is thinking, “Yeah, yeah, this is standard, quit complaining.” I know, I know. It’s very standard, but with Matlab you don’t have to pay attention to memory usage, data types, or anything really… you just write it. It’s honestly one of the closest things to a DWIM-understanding language I have ever seen. The past week, C has been brutally strict with me, and I don’t like it. Especially when the language it yells at me is in German. Having to decipher German compiler errors is getting really annoying.