Scilab 4.0

Lately, I've been playing around with Scilab 4.0. It's very similar to Matlab, but it's a lot more affordable, because it's free. After evaluating a few other similar open source applications, I must say I'm quite impressed with Scilab.

Mostly, I have been using it to solve linear algebra problems. I may take the time to write a tutorial here and there, if I have time--basic stuff for an audience completely new to Matlab or Scilab.

When you start up Scilab, you'll find yourself in a text-based environment with a waiting prompt:

-->

Oh, great wizard, what's 2+2? Enter "2+2"...

-->2+2
ans =
4.

Presto! Now you have yet another tool for doing arithmetic.

How about creating a function to cube numbers?

-->function[x]=cube(y)
-->x=y*y*y
-->endfunction

Let's give it a whirl...

-->cube(3)
ans =
27.

Let's assign values to some variables...

-->A = cube(5)
A =
125.

-->B = A/25
B =
5.

(to be continued)