> Andrew Ng, in his machine learning class [1] urges people do use Matlab instead of Python, because in his experience people develop faster with Matlab than wit any other tool/language.
Never trust academics when it comes to programming. :)
Seriously, Matlab might be a tiny bit better for scientific programming than Python. But: if you start building an eco system around your machine learning code (distributed evaluation of models, email reporting of results, web reporting of results, online tracking of training progress, data base related things, web services for other people, proper documentation, ...) you are happy if you chose python.
Also, there is theano for python which has auto diff, transparent GPU/CPU use and symbolic optimization. It makes your life easy if you are using complicated models.
Never trust academics when it comes to programming. :)
Seriously, Matlab might be a tiny bit better for scientific programming than Python. But: if you start building an eco system around your machine learning code (distributed evaluation of models, email reporting of results, web reporting of results, online tracking of training progress, data base related things, web services for other people, proper documentation, ...) you are happy if you chose python.
Also, there is theano for python which has auto diff, transparent GPU/CPU use and symbolic optimization. It makes your life easy if you are using complicated models.