Get started with MATLAB and ChatGPT for scientific coding

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Learn the key MATLAB programming skills that separate experts from novices: debugging, functions, and visualization

Welcome to “Get started with MATLAB for scientific coding”!

This course is designed to revolutionize your journey to mastering MATLAB, one of the industry’s leading programming languages for data visualization, numerical computation, and algorithm development.

This course is unique in that it integrates ChatGPT, a powerful AI language model developed by OpenAI, to support and enhance your learning experience.

Who is this course for?

Whether you’re a student trying to grapple with MATLAB for your coursework, a researcher aiming to analyze large data sets, or a professional seeking to enhance your coding skills, this course is tailored for you. No prior programming knowledge is required — I start from the basics and gradually build up to more complex topics.

What will you learn?

This course takes a comprehensive and engaging approach to learning MATLAB, covering everything from the basics of MATLAB’s desktop environment, variable types, scripts and functions, to data import/export, control statement architecture, and data visualization techniques.

But you won’t stop there… you will be introduced to ChatGPT and learn how to utilize this AI tool effectively to aid your coding journey. ChatGPT can translate natural language into code, improve your code, help in choosing the right coding structures, assist in debugging, and even explain complex code in plain English! This unique blend of learning to code while having an AI assistant is a novelty that sets our course apart.

Throughout the course, you will:

Understand the MATLAB desktop environment and how to use MATLAB as a calculator
Learn about different types of variables including numbers, strings, logic, and structures
Gain insights into the organization of scripts and functions, and the significance of function inputs and outputs
Develop skills to read and write data in MATLAB, text, and Excel formats
Master control statements such as if-else, for-loops, and while-loops
Learn about data visualization and figure plotting in MATLAB
Get introduced to coding errors and debugging strategies, including the FIP (find, inspect, plot) strategy
And much more…
Course highlights:

Detailed explanations of core MATLAB concepts with clear, visual examples
Plenty of hands-on exercises and practical applications to solidify your understanding
Interactive guidance from ChatGPT to assist with coding problems, debugging, and understanding complex concepts
Access to downloadable resources and code files for offline study and practice
Why choose this course?

Your instructor, Mike (that’s me!), brings over 20 years of experience teaching programming and data visualization. With a deep understanding of the hurdles that students face when learning MATLAB, I have designed this course not just to teach MATLAB, but to build strong, transferable programming skills. My teaching is complemented by ChatGPT, which is available for interactive programming help and guidance.

By the end of this course, you will not only be proficient in MATLAB programming, but also develop a strong understanding of scientific coding principles. Above all, you will learn how to work in tandem with AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance your coding skills and productivity.

So why wait? Enroll now and embark on a transformative journey of learning MATLAB with ChatGPT. I hope to see you soon in the course.

Who this course is for:

Students who need MATLAB for courses
Scientists who need MATLAB for research
Someone who will use MATLAB as a tool to understand math or engineering principles
Experienced programmers who are new to MATLAB
Anyone interested in learning about programming!
Table of Contents
Introductions
1 How to get the most from this course
2 How to use the Q&A forum
3 MATLAB and Octave
4 What is debugging and what is programming style

Intro to ChatGPT
5 What is ChatGPT
6 Accessing ChatGPT
7 ChatGPT and this course

Download all course materials
8 How to get the MATLAB files

The MATLAB desktop environment
9 The MATLAB desktop environment
10 MATLAB as a calculator, colon operator
11 Solve some MATLAB exercises!
12 Ask ChatGPT MATLAB questions

Variables
13 What are variables
14 Variables for numbers
15 Indexing number arrays
16 Variables for strings
17 Variables for logicals (Booleans)
18 Variables for structures
19 Variable naming rules and recommendations
20 ChatGPT translates natural language into code

Scripts and functions, part 1
21 Scripts and functions – organization
22 Function inputs and outputs
23 Getting help on functions
24 Comments, cells, spacing
25 Creating functions
26 The MATLAB path
27 Parameters and hard-coding vs. soft-coding
28 ChatGPT can improve your code

Getting data into and out of MATLAB
29 Copy-paste, loading MATLAB format files, Excel, and image files
30 Exporting data in MATLAB, text, and Excel formats

Control statements
31 Control statement architecture – if and switch commands
32 For-loops
33 While-loops
34 ChatGPT helps you choose which loop to use
35 Try-catch statements
36 Application (1 of 2) – import data
37 Application (2 of 2) – export data
38 Exercise – Create a matrix of random integers
39 Exercise – Guess the number!
40 ChatGPT for translating code languages

Visualizing data and functions
41 The importance of visualization – figure parts
42 Exercise – mo’ subplots, mo’ problems!
43 Plotting lines in 2D and in 3D
44 Making bar plots with error bars
45 imagesc, contourf, and surf
46 Improve your figure with get and set
47 Exercise – Find the fix the problems!

Functions, part 2
48 Miniverses – stepping into functions
49 Input checks on basicstats.m
50 Creating functions, example II
51 Creating functions – unique elements and frequencies
52 Anonymous functions
53 Exercise – anonymous function of two variables!
54 Set your preferences in startup.m and finish.m
55 ChatGPT explains code in plain English

Debugging
56 Types of programming difficulties, and tips for preventing errors
57 The FIP (find, inspect, plot) strategy for debugging
58 Examples of common programming errors
59 MATLAB profiler
60 Why learn to code when you have ChatGPT

Bonus section
61 Bonus lecture