SIOC 221A: Software Options
Historically, SIOC 221A has used Matlab
(http://www.mathworks.com/),
and the UCSD site license makes this available to you.
Instructions for obtaining the new licenses:
You are free to choose any software package or combination
of packages that you like, provided that you can carry out
Fast Fourier Transforms, work with complex numbers, and plot results.
The most viable alternative
to Matlab is Python, which is a freeware, modular, object oriented programming language
(http://www.python.org/).
Other resources:
- Octave: a freeware imitator of Matlab, uses almost the
same
commands. (http://www.octave.org/)
- Scilab: another freeware imitator of Matlab (http://www.scilab.org/)
- Fortran, c, or c++: compiled
languages.
Run faster than Matlab for some applications,
- Lapack/linpack: Fortran-based matrix inversion
packages. (http://www.netlib.org/lapack/)
- csh, awk, perl: Non-compiled scripting languages.
Sometimes
very efficient for transforming columns of numbers. (Not good for
matrix
inversion.)
- GMT: Generic Mapping Tool. Free unix
command-line
software developed for geophysical graphics. (http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/)
If you are new to linux and shell programming, the Software
Carpentry linux/unix tutorial offers a quick overview. Software Carpentry also has tutorials on Matlab, python, and version control via Git, among other things.