Formerly used mainly by specialists in signal processing and numerical analysis, MATLAB® in recent years has achieved widespread and enthusiastic acceptance throughout the engineering community. Many engineering schools now require a course based entirely or in part on MATLAB early in the curriculum. MATLAB is programmable and has the same logical, relational, conditional, and loop structures as other programming languages, such as Fortran, C, BASIC, and Pascal. Thus it can be used to teach programming principles. In most schools a MATLAB course has replaced the traditional Fortran course, and MATLAB is the principal computational tool used throughout the curriculum. In some technical specialties, such as signal processing and control systems, it is the standard software package for analysis and design.

The popularity of MATLAB is partly due to its long history, and thus it is well developed and well tested. People trust its answers. Its popularity is also due to its user interface, which provides an easy-to-use interactive environment that includes extensive numerical computation and visualization capabilities. Its compactness is a big advantage. For example, you can solve a set of many linear algebraic equations with just three lines of code, a feat that is impossible with traditional programming languages. MATLAB is also extensible; currently more than 20 ?toolboxes? in various application areas can be used with MATLAB to add new commands and capabilities.