Hi. I'm a PhD student with practically no programming experience. I'm through with classes, but I'm working on a project that will hopefully somehow lead into what I'll work with on my thesis. I'm using Matlab to do the coding. (Please don't scoff at this. This is the program that my advisor wants me to use, so that can't change.) I know what I need to code, but I just can't seem to wrap my mind around the programming. I would like to meet with someone with plenty of programming experience. Hopefully with experience with Matlab, but if not, Java would really help. I just need to figure out the intermediate steps of going from A to B, essentially. Also, I know that it is possible to get Matlab to work with Java, but not knowing how to code in Java, I don't know how to enter information so that it will be used correctly by a Java program.

If you have this experience and believe that you could help, please contact me with your availability. I would need probably a couple of hours to explain what I want to do and ask questions, and maybe a few follow-up emails. A formal setting, such as a classroom, is fine, or informal, such as talking over dinner, is also fine. I would prefer to meet sooner than later...

Thanks so much!

12/16/2008 2:18:43 PM

matlab is fine for doing development

just know that if you want a faster solution after you get the kinks worked out, you will need to move to something else

12/16/2008 2:36:13 PM

http://www.meetwithprogrammers.com

[Edited on December 16, 2008 at 3:46 PM. Reason : 1]

12/16/2008 3:46:20 PM

Programming in general and MATLAB specifically are best learned in a hands on fashion. Start with simple tasks to start learning basic skills.

http://www.swc.scipy.org/index.html

The above site teaches basic programming skills. While it's intended for python, most of the tasks can be completed in MATLAB and you'll learn important fundamentals. MATLAB is well documented and the MATLAB help as a good index and plenth of example code. It's your best friend when it comes to finding the function you need.

MATLAB handles everything in terms of arrays or matrices. Once you learn how to approach tasks using arrays, you'll be able to do what you need.

Let us know what field you're working in. Someone on here may be able to point you towards someone in your department with plenty of experience that can help you. Also, feel free to post code and questions here. There are a few MATLAB pros here on TWW.

12/16/2008 11:05:09 PM

Thank you so much for your response. I was a math major as an undergrad, so I have a bit of experience with the basics of Matlab. I just don't know how to do the sophisticated stuff that I'm wanting to do now. I am also sure that all the stuff that I've done so far is not very efficient...

One of the things I'm trying to do is code the Hopcroft algorithm. You can see information and "pseudo code" on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopcroft%E2%80%93Karp_algorithm I just don't know how to get the code that I have now set up in such a way that I can use it with this algorithm, nor do I know how to do all the translating to get that code into Matlab (I know how to do some of it though).

I also need to do work with sparse matrix functions, and I'd like to get ideas on efficiency and how I can enumerate rows so that I know which columns and rows have particular traits. (In case you need to know, I'm trying to create a transition matrix for states of an automaton, where each state holds a q, b, m-tuple, and a vector of two statistics.) Essentially, I need a way to enumerate the states so that I know that row i is associated with the statistics (x, y). The difficulty here, at least for me, is that for one particular {q, b, m-tuple} there may be 3 possible vectors of statistics, whereas for another, there may be 20.

I apologize if that last part is "Greek to you" but I just need to speak with a programmer to get ideas on what can work. In person, I can explain better what it is that I'm trying to get it to do.

12/17/2008 2:24:09 AM

For those of you that may be able to help, here is another wonderful source on part of what I'm trying to do: http://www.lsv.ens-cachan.fr/Publis/PAPERS/PDF/BP-ciaa06.pdf

Again, I would like to meet with a programmer, either in a formal setting or over dinner, your preference. If you can help me with this, please email me your availability, your preference of meeting type, and how much you would charge me for your help. Thanks so much!

12/17/2008 2:29:54 AM

The MATLAB bioinformatics toolbox has a function called graphmaxflow that can use the Edmonds and Karp algorithm from which the Hopcroft and Karp algorithm is based. If you have access to that tool box you can take a peek at the function code to get an idea of how it's put together. That might help you. I'd offer you pointer personally, but I don't really understand your application and I've never had cause to learn spare-matrices.

12/18/2008 2:42:44 PM