[Answer] For the automation major, which is more widely useful: MATLAB or C?

[Answer] For the automation major, which is more widely useful: MATLAB or C?

Although MATLAB was once hugely popular—and is still very common today—I’m not especially optimistic about the long-term prospects of this kind of large commercial software. In some sense, learning programs like MATLAB can become a kind of self-imposed limitation: once you leave that commercial software platform, it becomes difficult to get things done (setting aside the issue of using unlicensed copies). In today’s broader environment, the open-source movement is steadily taking over more and more territory from commercial software. When even a giant like Microsoft is actively embracing open source, it is hard to say how much further MATLAB can expand beyond the niche it already occupies.

At the same time, programming tools led by Python are gradually eating into the fields of data analysis and simulation through open-source ecosystems. Python’s scientific distribution, Anaconda, offers vastly better cost-performance than MATLAB (because it is free—the price is zero), and it also has more natural advantages when it comes to integration with the web and artificial intelligence. If you are going to learn one language, Python is my top recommendation.

Of course, as one of the foundations of modern programming languages, C is something you should definitely become familiar with and, if possible, master. No matter how things change, the fundamentals remain the same: if you truly understand C, you will find it much easier to learn most other languages and get up to speed quickly.