I was a bit baffled the first time I was introduced to Simulink Coder. I get the value proposition: simulate your model so that you have confidence it's doing the right thing, and then essentially just run that model as code instead of implementing it yourself and possibly introducing mistakes. What I didn't understand, as a software guy, not an engineering guy, was why on earth you'd want a graphical programming language to do that. Surely it would be easier to just write your model in a traditional text-based language. Hell, the same company even makes their own language (MATLAB) that would be perfect for the task.
I did a little digging, and it turns out I had it backwards. It's not that Simulink invented a new graphical programming language to do this stuff. Control systems engineers have been studying and documenting systems using Simulink-style block diagrams since at least the 1960s. Simulink just took something that used to be a paper and chalkboard modeling tool and made it executable on a computer.
I did a little digging, and it turns out I had it backwards. It's not that Simulink invented a new graphical programming language to do this stuff. Control systems engineers have been studying and documenting systems using Simulink-style block diagrams since at least the 1960s. Simulink just took something that used to be a paper and chalkboard modeling tool and made it executable on a computer.