MATLAB vs Python for programming Probability Based Program

Question

I am writing programs that are based on robots navigating through mazes (would involve stochastic programming).

Since it will involve heavy matrix handling (plus point for MATLAB) and simulating a robot (plus point for Prolog), I am in a dilemma between the choice of MATLAB and Prolog.

Note: I do have MATLAB at my work environment, hence cost is not an issue.

Answer 1

As mentioned previously, I am not sure if you are looking for comparisons between MATLAB and Python or MATLAB and Prolog. I can speak to the former, at least: MATLAB provides fast linear algebraic computation and a great IDE... and that's about it. Python will cost you much fewer headaches (and dollars), and you can manage "heavy matrix handling" nearly as easily if you tack on Numpy in particular, or SciPy in general.

Also, VPython (Visual Python) is a great 3D visualization tool that uses Numpy under the hood. I developed a robot simulator using VPython; you can see screenshots and example code (for simple wall-following maze navigation) that you can check out in a recent blog post.