> What makes you think it would be any better had they not used MATLAB?
Probably the most general cross-disciplinary reason MATLAB worsens an already bad situation is that it isolates scientists and engineers from people who are good at programming. When you seek out help for a particular problem, it's often a blind-leading-the-blind situation. How can you learn to program well if you've never seen a good piece of MATLAB code? Good luck finding good examples and role models to learn from if your programming universe is limited to MATLAB. Poor quality and practices proliferate because there is almost never anyone skilled reviewing changes and helping you get better. People just make a change and pray it still works.
From my own experience, though... I'm doubting you. I really don't think these people see a problem with what they're doing and wouldn't care even if they did - so why would they ask for help? You'd have to have someone sitting over their shoulder all the time training them (most colleges already have introductory MATLAB courses, so apparently that doesn't help much) - no one would like that arrangement.
But what you've identified isn't really a problem with MATLAB, is it? It's a problem with the culture of people who tend to use it. It's a real problem, but I'm not sure what can be done about it other than to try to get at these people while they're still young and learning.
> But what you've identified isn't really a problem with MATLAB, is it?
Yes, it is. Everybody that knows what they are doing moves away from MATLAB as fast as they can. That's MATLAB's fault.
Except for teaching, mind you. The entire problem is that MATLAB is a great teaching tool, and a completely worthless tool for anything else. Guess what, lots of people stick with what they learn at school.
Probably the most general cross-disciplinary reason MATLAB worsens an already bad situation is that it isolates scientists and engineers from people who are good at programming. When you seek out help for a particular problem, it's often a blind-leading-the-blind situation. How can you learn to program well if you've never seen a good piece of MATLAB code? Good luck finding good examples and role models to learn from if your programming universe is limited to MATLAB. Poor quality and practices proliferate because there is almost never anyone skilled reviewing changes and helping you get better. People just make a change and pray it still works.