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Subject: Re: Spring 2009 MATLAB Contest, April 1st-April 10th
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:53:01 +0000 (UTC)
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"Ned Gulley" <gulley@mathworks.com> wrote in message <gr2u3p$g83$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> No, the latest contest is not a joke. 
> 
> We're genuinely interested in seeing the insights that people will mine from the provided data set, and we think seeing how other people use MATLAB for the purpose of data visualization is a reasonable use of the File Exchange.
> 

Amidst the bombardment of negative comments and concerns about the validity of the contest, I was bit puzzled. I must admit, at first I was also bit disappointed to see the contest format. But then I realized this is because I primarily use MATLAB for numerical data processing, and expected similar sort of contests. I think MATLAB is still primarily for that. Nevertheless, I must also admit that the powerful data visualization features of MATLAB is a differentiator from other languages like C. As for myself, if I get some more time I will try to do a bit of data mining and try different visualization commands just for fun and self-training. The contest is a good motivation :)