The MathWorks, Inc. [L1 ] styles MATLAB [L2 ] as "the language of technical computing". MathWorks is an interesting company; it continued to hire programmers all through 2002 and at least the beginning of 2003, despite the general depression in IT.
The quickest, lightest way to get Tcl and MATLAB talking is through DDE. Does MATLAB also offer a COM interface?
"GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations", according to its home page [L3 ]. Its language "is mostly compatible with Matlab."
http://merlin.inescn.pt/~qual/tk_octave/index.htm ?
Tkoctave
[Link to article on Open Source vs. proprietary for scientists, available through [L4 ].]