> The issue was never the syntax—it was the runtime. Why readable math still matters in a world aided by LLM-assisted code generation

I’m going to stop you right there. Matlab has 5 issues:

1. The license

2. Most users don’t understand what makes Matlab special and they write for loops over their arrays.

3. The other license

4. The other license

5. The license server

Mathworks seems to have set up licensing to maximize how much revenue they can extract with no thought given to how deeply annoying it is to use.

For me the friction of dealing with licenses would make it hard to fully integrate a commercial package into my routine. Commercial developers have to decide how they expect a product to be used, so they can allocate finite resources. This invariably imposes limits on users.

In my case, trivial uses are as important as high-visibility projects. I can spin up a complete Python installation to do something like log data from some sensors in the lab, while I do something in another lab, and have something going at my desk, and at home. I use hobby projects to learn new skills. I've played with CircuitPython to create little gadgets that my less technically inclined colleagues can work with. I encouraged my kids to learn Python. I write little apps and give them to colleage. I probably have a dozen Python installations running here and there at any moment.

This isn't a slam on Matlab, since I know it has a loyal following. And I'm unaware of an alternative to Simulink, if that's your bag. And Matlab might be doing the right thing for their business. My impression is that most "engineering software" is geared towards the engineer sitting at a stationary workstation all day, like a CAD operator. And this may be the main way that software is used. Maybe I'm the freak.

That's precisely the point(s), the runtime's issues (closed source, cost, etc) are what is helping with the declining popularity of the language when really the language can be handy to people who work in math-heavy industries.

thankfully there are fast open source alternatives out there now, hint hint runmat ;)