Thread Subject: Matlab version of choice?

A question.

Do you people hold back your Matlab version for specific reasons? E.g. R14SP3 seems to be a popular vintage, even though it's missing a lot of the newer, more comfy features of later versions.

I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if there are technical reasons for using older versions.

(Excepting of course licensing issues and the drop off of platform support)

- Steve

"Steve Amphlett" <Firstname.Lastname@Where-I-Work.com> wrote in message
news:gcps3t$t34$1@fred.mathworks.com...
>A question.
>
> Do you people hold back your Matlab version for specific reasons? E.g.
> R14SP3 seems to be a popular vintage, even though it's missing a lot of
> the newer, more comfy features of later versions.
>
> I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if there
> are technical reasons for using older versions.
>
> (Excepting of course licensing issues and the drop off of platform
> support)
>
> - Steve

I've upgraded to 2008b to play with the OO stuff which does not exist in
earlier versions.

As a habit, I always upgrade as soon as new version comes out, since you'd
expect the new version to be 'better'

Nasser

"Steve Amphlett" <Firstname.Lastname@Where-I-Work.com> wrote in message <gcps3t$t34$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> A question.
>
> Do you people hold back your Matlab version for specific reasons? E.g. R14SP3 seems to be a popular vintage, even though it's missing a lot of the newer, more comfy features of later versions.
>
> I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if there are technical reasons for using older versions.
>
> (Excepting of course licensing issues and the drop off of platform support)
>
> - Steve

the 2007a for intel mac was not very good. so i upgraded quickly to 2008a. Typically i dont jump at the new features in matlab since it usually takes a few releases for get all the bugs worked out and the syntax agreed on. As for keeping older older versions that doesn't do you any good. The new versions are just so much faster than the old versions.

Steve Amphlett wrote:
...
> Do you people hold back your Matlab version for specific reasons? ...
> I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if
there are technical reasons for using older versions.
...

While not specifically the question posed, technically, it's cost.

--

Steve Amphlett wrote:

> Do you people hold back your Matlab version for specific reasons?
 
> I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if there are technical reasons
> for using older versions.

Yes for us; our R2008a is licensed on a Ubuntu server, but Ubuntu has some kind
of X acceleration library that doesn't work perfectly with Matlab (or Maple).
Mathworks is working on the issue.

> I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if there are technical reasons for using older versions.
>
> (Excepting of course licensing issues and the drop off of platform support)
>

We stopped upgrading with R2007b due to the intrusive licensing
features that started with R2008a.

"Steve Amphlett" <Firstname.Lastname@Where-I-Work.com> wrote in message <gcps3t$t34$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> A question.
>
> Do you people hold back your Matlab version for specific reasons? E.g. R14SP3 seems to be a popular vintage, even though it's missing a lot of the newer, more comfy features of later versions.
>
> I'm not suggesting people should upgrade daily, just wondering if there are technical reasons for using older versions.
>
> (Excepting of course licensing issues and the drop off of platform support)
>
> - Steve

I started using Matlab around version 6.5, and I used to upgrade as soon as new versions came out. However, I've become increasingly annoyed by the Java heap space hogging "features" that have been introduced in the more recent versions (I reach my heap space limit every few days and have to restart Matlab). I haven't upgraded since R2007a out of fear of this getting even worse with all the new desktop stuff added to recent versions. If I had access to it, I would probably go back to R14SP3 or R2006a, since I never had the Java problem with those versions and I think all of the capabilities I use on a regular basis had been introduced by then.

As it is, my university is usually a few months behind updating the license that is available to us, so I can get a good feeling from the newsgroup whether there are specific functions and bug fixes that I would really want. Anonymous functions, cellfun and arrayfun, the last upgrade to the mapping toolbox, and bsxfun all promted me to upgrade in the past. But for my work, I have no need for the object-oriented capabilities added, and I would probably just opt to turn off most of the additional desktop features (as I do now to all the mlint stuff added to the editor). So I don't intend to upgrade to R2008.

-Kelly

 

Bob <ralvarez@spambob.net> wrote in message
> We stopped upgrading with R2007b due to the intrusive licensing
> features that started with R2008a.

Same here.

I will not be upgrading, and neither will anyone in my group, unless there are some MAJOR advantages in future releases that would far outweigh our dislike of this new licensing paradigm.
We even had entitlement to 2008a when it came out, but didn't upgrade and let our account expire.
It took me a while to convince several in my group to upgrade beyond ver 6.1! Once they saw (and believed in) the JIT speedup, they were won over. We really like 2007b, and will stick with that for the foreseeable future.

On Oct 12, 1:46 pm, "Matt Fig" <spama...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Bob <ralva...@spambob.net> wrote in message
> > We stopped upgrading with R2007b due to the intrusive licensing
> > features that started with R2008a.
>
> Same here.
>
> I will not be upgrading, and neither will anyone in my group, unless there are some MAJOR advantages in future releases that would far outweigh our dislike of this new licensing paradigm.
> We even had entitlement to 2008a when it came out, but didn't upgrade and let our account expire.
> It took me a while to convince several in my group to upgrade beyond ver 6.1! Once they saw (and believed in) the JIT speedup, they were won over. We really like 2007b, and will stick with that for the foreseeable future.

For me, I'm sticking with R2006a. Back then, I upgraded to R2006b,
but Matlab -r would not close with exit. I have several routines
running hourly on a schedule. Soon after upgrading, I came in to find
60-odd Matlab sessions still running, with a dozen or so more opening
every hour. It was like the Sorceror's Apprentice! As fast as I was
closing them, more windows were opening. I had to revert to R2006a,
so I stopped the service contract. Eventually, I'll switch to SciLab
which seems to have everything that Matlab does, except CSSM of
course.

In article <VT_Hk.3178$ZP4.688@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
Nasser Abbasi <nma@12000.org> wrote:
>I've upgraded to 2008b to play with the OO stuff which does not exist in
>earlier versions.
>
>As a habit, I always upgrade as soon as new version comes out, since you'd
>expect the new version to be 'better'

Even given the experience with Microsoft operating systems
and some applications (I am thinking of Word)?

Francis

"Francis Burton" <fburton@nyx.net> wrote in message
news:1223819654.238410@irys.nyx.net...
> In article <VT_Hk.3178$ZP4.688@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
> Nasser Abbasi <nma@12000.org> wrote:
>>I've upgraded to 2008b to play with the OO stuff which does not exist in
>>earlier versions.
>>
>>As a habit, I always upgrade as soon as new version comes out, since you'd
>>expect the new version to be 'better'
>

> Even given the experience with Microsoft operating systems
> and some applications (I am thinking of Word)?
>
> Francis

I meant only for 'scientific' tools.

These are the main tools I use every day: Matlab, Mathematica, Scientific
Word (for Latex reports/HW's writing), MS word (for small stuff, make web
pages links, etc...), and to a lesser extent Maple.

And those I always upgrade the same day they come out (except for MS word,
which I am happy with what I have (Word 2003) since it does the job for me).

I have no need to upgrade the OS or change it, since I live inside the above
tools all day, the OS itself is not that important for me as long as it is
'working' and those apps work inside it ok.

Nasser