&gt; I don&#x27;t understand how my colleagues put up with the terrible trifecta of mathematica, matlab, and labview<p>In my experience, it seems to happen because those are the tools taught to science and engineering students, who then take them to the workforce (post-doc, industry, etc.). Those entering academia then use them for instruction, rinse &amp; repeat, just like you describe.<p>For what its worth, I&#x27;ve tried very hard to move folks I work with from MATLAB to Python.