Why do you come to "MATLAB Answers"?

My answer is 'abcdefghi'. Higher priority, more important one comes first.

Post you answer. Maybe I can collect all of them and give a statistic.

a.  To learn new tricks
b.  To challenge myself
c.  To help others
d.  To improve Matlab software
e.  To seek help
f.  To socialize
g.  To earn reputation points
h.  To help Mathworks' business 
i.  To kill time

[Fangjun Jiang]

I think Aurelien Queffurust's answer is surprising and brilliant.

Answer 1

[Aurelien Queffurust]

The question is "Why do you come to the "MATLAB Answers"? My answer is really simple:

    >>why(393)

Aurélien

[Fangjun Jiang]

+1 Good answer! How could I not know that Matlab has answers for everything!

Answer 2

[Jan]

j: Exercise my English.

[Doug Hull]

It is fine!

[Jan]

@Doug: If you mean that it is a fine idea to try to improve my English: I agree. I remember my famous presentation at an international congress for biomechanics, when I talked 30 minutes about measuring the ankle angel.

[Andrew Newell]

Your written English excellent is.

[Jan]

Oleg thought I'm speaking Dutch. That let me think twice...

[Oleg Komarov]

lol, I knew you were German and your English is perfectly fine...I just confused Dutch (and I lived in the Netherlands for 3 months, should have learnt the difference, but the only sentence I am left with is: neuken in de keuken)

[Andrew Newell]

You must have fond memories of the Netherlands!

[Jan]

Although I thought more of "d: improve Matlab", I spent more time in the last months to try to "k: improve Matlab Answers" itself. The 99 answers in Walter's wish-list are a valuable model for anybody who wants to create a forum.

Answer 3

[Andrew Newell]

For Walter, because even he can't answer all of the questions!

[Walter Roberson]

I'd like to thank the Hong Kong Cavaliers, without whom I would have had to AutoTune some of my Answers.

Answer 4

[Sean de Wolski]

['a':'c' 'f' 'i']

I've learned how to program in MATLAB pretty much exclusively from CSSM and Answers. The quick fun challenges/socialization with people from all over the world are an added benefit.

[per isakson]

That one was new to me:)

Answer 5

[Andy]

When Answers was first instituted, I didn't really see the need for it in addition to CSSM. But it does seem to have a bit higher signal to noise ratio, and I like the instantaneous posting (rather than waiting minutes for CSSM posts to show). I'll go with abcdei.

[Sean de Wolski]

I like the formatting, ease of posting images, comments on a post, ratings to see what others recommend, and general layout. I do miss the fact that CSSM had many more contributors so I still read it occasionally.

[Andy]

I like some of the formatting. I would really like to be able to use markup in comments.

Answer 6

[Matt Fig]

All of the above, more or less, and ranked differently according to my mood and need or both. ;-)

Answer 7

[Frank]

why(2^32-5)

 :^)

[Randy Souza]

I voted you up to prove the point :-)

Answer 8

[Oleg Komarov]

abcegi

Listed in alphabetical order, you wanna how I rank them, no wayyyyy.

Answer 9

[Jonathan]

a, b, c, i

Answer 10

[Andrew Newell]

choices = 'abcefgi';
disp(choices(randperm(length(choices))))

[Jan]

Use FEX:Shuffle to compute this more efficiently: "Shuffle('abcefgi')"

[Matt Tearle]

How about randsample('abcdefghi',9)?

(Requires Stats TB)

[Andrew Newell]

Yep, 'a' is definitely coming out in front today.

Answer 11

[Paulo Silva]

j.  To waste time

[Sean de Wolski]

I've thought about this quite a bit: though I do spend a fair amount of time on here, the wealth of knowledge I've acquired from here (and CSSM) over the years has made it so when I'm actually writing code it happens much faster with fewer bugs and with a result of greater quality. It also trains you do look at other people's code (common mistakes, slow stuff etc.) which has helped me help other people in the lab more efficiently.

[Jan]

I waste a lot of time due to the keyboard latency (described elsewhere already).

I'm not sure how to treat questions with missing details *efficiently*: The standard "please post any details" is useful, if the people take the time for thinking twice until they can define the problem exactly - usually this involves the answer already. But unfortunately too many people do not explain the details, but simply do not care anymore. Then asking for details is a waste of time.

[Jan]

@Paulo: What is the difference between "kill time" and "waste time"?

[Sean de Wolski]

"To kill time" is it make it pass when you have to. Perhaps if you were waiting at an airport, you would kill the time until your flight by watching tv or reading a magazine. "To waste time" is to spend your time doing something other than what you should, perhaps logging onto Facebook at work.

[Paulo Silva]

@Jan, Sean answered for me and did a good work, I do find this place to be good for learning but most of the time we are answering repeated questions and things that most users would find on the documentation and/or newsgroups.

Answer 12

[Chien-Chia Huang]

abef and, when well trained, c. "MATLAB Answers" is a great place where I get surprised coz being here I'm always like a layman to MATLAB. Many thanks to all the guys who did and do help.:)

Answer 13

[James Tursa]

j. To see how much farther back my reputation points are compared to Walter and Matt.

Answer 14

[Randy Souza]

why(276)

[Randy Souza]

Hat tip @Aurélien

Answer 15

[Grzegorz Knor]

There is not enough questions on Polish forum :) - http://www.matlab.pl/index.php

Moreover: a - b - c - j (exercise my English).

[Jan]

Hi Grzegorz! Now we are two English learners.

Answer 16

[Thomas]

why(99);why(710)

[Sharon]

Good one...

Answer 17

[Geoff]

Escapism...

[Richard Brown]

Yep

Answer 18

[Richard Brown]

When I get blocked with my research, here at least I can make an epsilon contribution to something ...

[Adam Danz]

+1 I feel ya!

Answer 19

[madhan ravi]

Addiction:

1) Lend a hand.

2) Being helped.

[Rik]

Is addiction a typo? If not, have my +1 to fuel that addiction.

[madhan ravi]

>:D<

Answer 20

[Matt Tearle]

why(416)

why(9816)

Or, failing that,

why(22)

The first two are actually fairly accurate! In many ways, I guess it's (h), partly by doing (c) and partly by seeing what MATLAB users want to know, what they're struggling with, what they're trying to do, etc.

But pretty much (a)-(i) to some degree, plus (j): I'm a massive dork.

Answer 21

[K E]

I don't work with any Simulink experts, just a group of self-taught beginners. Answers provides me with a link to experts; several are active here. I feel obliged to help other learners and can actually contribute something because the same starter questions reappear often.

[Sean de Wolski]

You'll find helping others really helps your _actual understanding_ as well!

[Rik]

That's also my experience.

Answer 22

[Lukas]

a.  To learn new tricks
b.  To challenge myself
e.  To seek help

I think the collective knowledge of the group of people that are on here can solve almost any problem when working with MATLAB. The real challenge, is effectively tapping into that knowledge.