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One of the major criticisms of MATLAB from a reproducibility standpoint relates to running MATLAB itself. For one thing, MATLAB is proprietary product requiring a license (see my last blog for more on this) - presenting an expensive reroducibility hurdle. Moreover, MATLAB can be a chore to install. Unlike python for instance, where the core language library is fairly quick to install, MATLAB comes bundled with the IDE among other things and can be over a gigabyte, making it unappealing to install to test out running someone else’s code or to install a different version.
Worry no more, reproducibility fans! MathWorks have got our backs.
As detailed on Mike Croucher’s post on the MATLAB blog, it is now possible to create a link that will open a MATLAB GitHub repository to be run on MATLAB Online - without a license!
You may have heard of the Binder project, which has been around for a few years now, facilitating reproducible ephemeral compute environments (for python, Julia or R) in the cloud. Binder will fetch the contents of a public repo, build a docker image and spin up a compute environment in the browser.
Well now we have that for MATLAB! And it’s super simple.
Let’s say your code was on github at: github.com/reproducibleMATLAB/temperature-visualisations
All you have to do is create a link: https://matlab.mathworks.com/open/github/v1?repo=reproducibleMATLAB/temperature-visualisations
You can even add project files and a default starting file to your link: https://matlab.mathworks.com/open/github/v1?repo=reproducibleMATLAB/temperature-visualisations&project=temperature_visualisations.prj&file=temperature_visualisations.mlx
These mean that you can control the dependencies and even include files that run on project startup. I’ve used one of these in this project to check that a required toolbox is installed and to warn the user if not.
There’s even a handy online tool for creating these links for you.
You can use it to create a link for adding a badge to your repo:
[](https://matlab.mathworks.com/open/github/v1?repo=reproducibleMATLAB/temperature-visualisations&project=temperature_visualisations.prj&file=temperature_visualisations.mlx)
This is a great step forward for reproducibility in MATLAB, now we can make it easy for anyone to open a MATLAB project and run it in the cloud, even if they don’t have a license. All they need is a MathWorks account and they can use the basic tier of MATLAB online for free.