Hello Everyone. As many of you have probably noticed, Blinkdagger has not been posting with as much regularity. I would like to announce that this is probably going to be one of the last posts you will see at Blinkdagger. There are no plans to continue posting MATLAB tutorials in the immediate future.

At the time of this post, there are over 800 RSS subscribers, and over 2500 visitors a day on average. I started this website with Daniel from nothing and have developed it to an impressive level. A lot of you are probably wondering “Why?” I will do the best I can to explain the circumstances that have led to this decision.

Daniel Sutoyo Accepts a Position at The MathWorks

If there’s one good thing that has emerged from this website, it’s the fact that Daniel was able to obtain a position at The MathWorks. Unfortunately, as soon as Daniel became an employee of The MathWorks, there was a conflict of interest in being affiliated with this website. Originally, no one knew what to expect from this union. When we were going through the interview process, we were told that we would be able to maintain this blog while simultaneously working at The MathWorks. As it turns out, things would not be so simple.

After several meetings with The MathWorks legal team, it was determined that Daniel would be unable to contribute anything MATLAB related to this website. Thus, that essentially ended Daniel’s participation here at Blinkdagger as everything on this website is basically MATLAB related. Since this site took a great deal of effort to maintain, we found it difficult to continue on since one half of the team was removed from the equation. We had some big plans moving forward, but in the end we found that working around the legal ramifications would prove insurmountable, and that our time would be better spent on other projects.

The MathWorks Support - Or Lack of

One of the things that bothered me is that The MathWorks was not very supportive of the efforts over here at Blinkdagger. Over the course of this website’s life, the site provided over 100+ informative tutorials on how to use MATLAB to create GUIs, how to create plots, use particular functions, and various other tips and tricks on learning MATLAB.

I believe that Blinkdagger has created and maintained a valuable MATLAB resource; this is corroborated with hundreds if not thousands of positive feedback through the many comments that are received on a daily basis. Many months ago, I had queried The MathWorks on obtaining a personal license for MATLAB. Since this website provides many useful tutorials, it did not seem like a stretch by any means to make such a request. I was basically told that The MathWorks would be unable to provide such a license due to some legal restriction. If they were to provide such a license, they would then have to start monitoring the blog content, etc. To be honest, I found this quite frustrating. The way I saw it, it would be a win/win situation for both parties at hand. Unfortunately, the request was never granted.

Additionally, I felt that The MathWorks could have done a better job promoting and assisting websites like this one in order to cultivate an environment wherein more bloggers would be compelled to contribute to the MATLAB community. The MathWorks have created a great internal community at MATLAB central, but the potential for growth could be so much more and over a broader spectrum if they provided more support and incentive. In my opinion, it would be to the advantage of The MathWorks if there were more blogs like Blinkdagger out there, helping other users learn how to use this great tool. In fact, as of now, Blinkdagger is probably the largest external MATLAB website/blog. While The MathWorks have some internal blogs, those are homegrown and provide an entirely different flavor. The potential for external blogs is, in my opinion, much greater and provides a different platform wherein MATLAB can thrive and flourish.

Final Thanks

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who helped contribute to this site. Specifically, I would like to thank Rob Slazas, Sol Lederman, and Zane Montgomery, for their help throughout the last two years. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who was kind enough to leave an encouraging comment. The comments Blinkdagger received were the best part about maintaining this website, as it was concrete proof and positive reinforcement that Blinkdagger was helping others understand and use MATLAB. The reason Blinkdagger continued on for so long was because of the kind comments that were received.

In Closing

This blog has been something that I have poured a lot of work into, and it is difficult to leave it as is. If anyone is serious in contributing to the blog or wants to see Blinkdagger continue, please leave a comment below or send a memo through the contact form. For now, there will be no more tutorials, but the website will continue to be active until the end of the hosting contract (which may or may not be renewed).