Whoring the Matlab File Exchange Pick of the Week Blog
As an avid Matlab user, I frequently supplement the built-in functionality with source code from Matlab's File Exchange. Sometimes it's simple, but extremely convenient functionality I'd rather not code myself, such as mtit. Sometimes it's more esoteric code specific to a domain or file standard that I'd never code myself such as plot2svg. All in all, Matlab's File Exchange has proven to be a real resource. However, for the longest time, I only acquired new File Exchange code when I explicitly needed functionality unavailable in Matlab.
But that's only half the benefit of the File Exchange. There are libraries upon libraries of code on the internet aimed at providing functionality users wouldn't ever imagine (think jQuery or any of a million web frameworks aimed at adding radically simplified interfaces to a unified combination of programming elements). Given that I might benefit from code I didn't even know existed, how could these unsung ones-and-zeroes be brought to my attention?
Enter Matlab's File Exchange Pick of the Week blog. Each Friday, one of two Matlab employees ( Brett & Jiro ) posts about his "favorite user-contributed submissions from the File Exchange." Once I found this blog, I subscribed to its feed and now every Friday I eagerly await what goodie will be bestowed upon me next.
Unfortunately, the last few blog posts have garnered my disdain. Instead of the usually useful picks, Brett and Jiro have chosen poorly veiled "picks" that promote Matlab's new Apps feature.
Oh hey all you scientific programmers, check out this arcade-style shooter written in Matlab - did we mention it's the first user-contributed App?
Matlab users: if you found galaga useful for analyzing data, look at this map-of-the-stars file exchange submission written by one of the Matlab employees that's actually an App, a new feature in Matlab!!
Check out this, user-submitted content: it's an App centered on two e-books written by one of Matlab's original authors, Cleve. Don't worry, the App itself is also written by Cleve so you know it's user-submitted.
It's their company and their blog, they can do what they want with it, but I can't help but feel slightly wronged. I can't really speculate on possible repercussions this not so subtle corporate whoring might have - Matlab has entrenched itself as a mission critical part of so many getups - but I hope maybe this post will make the point to the folks at Mathworks that they should consider treating us with respect instead of somehow believing that they can covertly advertise through a medium we choose to subscribe to under the pretenses that it will contain actual utility. I'm not calling anyone a bad person or particularly furious about the situation, it's more of a "shame on you" kinda thing. Did I mention Matlab has a new Apps feature?
