Why doesn't MATLAB have +=, -=, *= ?

[eLiu]

Don't get me wrong... I love matlab, but does anyone know why they don't have +=, -= or *= operators?

They're so convenient! And if you have a complex indexing scheme or something, you don't have like:
A(junkjunkjunkjunk,junkjunkjunkjunk2) = A(junkjunkjunkjunk,junkjunkjunkjunk2) + 3;
instead,
A(junkjunkjunkjunk,junkjunkjunkjunk2) += 3;

Isn't that nice? C'mon mathworks, what's the deal 🙁

-Eric

 

[CycloWizard]

You can always use
for i=1:3:50
***
end
to increment by 3. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[eLiu]

I mean the incrementing by 3 is arbitrary. There coudl be some other expression there. The point is that in order to update a part of an array/matrix (example: working with a block-diagonal matrix with non-uniformly sized blocks), I have to type out the indexing twice. It's just a pet peeve/whine, not really any real trouble, lol.

 

[WildHorse]

I prefer Mathematica over Matlab.
Mathematica has its syntax quirks too.

Check it out.

 

[TecHNooB]

Matlab is the devil!

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: eLiu
I mean the incrementing by 3 is arbitrary. There coudl be some other expression there. The point is that in order to update a part of an array/matrix (example: working with a block-diagonal matrix with non-uniformly sized blocks), I have to type out the indexing twice. It's just a pet peeve/whine, not really any real trouble, lol.

Yeah, I know. I've been programming MATLAB for years and am now trying to switch over to C/C#. Trying to deal with arrays in C is like pulling teeth compared to MATLAB - they both have their strengths and weaknesses I suppose.

 

[tatteredpotato]

I've used Maple... I think it's more similar to Mathematica than Matlab, but my experience with both the others is very limited.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
I've used Maple... I think it's more similar to Mathematica than Matlab, but my experience with both the others is very limited.

Maple is similar to Mathematica, but its symbolic functionality is completely contained within the MATLAB symbolic manipulation toolkit (i.e. the toolkit actually calls Maple functions).