I don’t know if experience has just damaged my brain or what, but I really like matlab’s syntax for what it is. Nice for writing 100 line experiments or using in the REPL. Sort of like the Python of linear algebra, haha. It also has a nice feature where you start getting headaches to let you know you’ve tried to extend it past its comfort zone.
Julia seems to sit in this area between Matlab and Fortran where I can’t ever find a reason to learn it instead of just using one of the other two. But people seem to love it (and the GPGPU support sounds like it is good?) so I should probably just make up a reason.
Julia might just be the closest thing at the moment to Matlab without being a Matlab clone. I think you're overestimating the learning curve. It has a REPL, with tab completion and ?<funcname> for high-quality help (without resorting to a browser or llm).
Julia seems to sit in this area between Matlab and Fortran where I can’t ever find a reason to learn it instead of just using one of the other two. But people seem to love it (and the GPGPU support sounds like it is good?) so I should probably just make up a reason.