Mathematica is LISP, so it's really 0-based indexing, where the first element is the function you're applying. All the sugar and literals are made to hide this, but you can code like you're dealing with a real LISP.
In my opinion Matlab the language sucks even for its intended use. What makes the complete package arely acceptable to work with is the environment, the documentation and the included libraries.
I did 5 years of image processing in Matlab but then switched to Python 4 years ago. One of the best choices I did in my programming career.
Interesting. I make a living developing backend systems in Python, but picked up Matlab (Octave) for machine learning, and really enjoyed doing linear algebra on it. For PoCs and general experimentation I find it more amenable than messing with Numpy. Of course it isn't great for building complete systems, but for self-contained programs - which I believe is the intended purpose - it works pretty well.
