Mathematica vs Matlab

Yes I know these programs do different things so that you cant compare them directly. But still I am curious which is better from a programming point of view. I think Mathematica is closer to Lisp as it is a symbolic language and Matlab has a very C++-like language

I like MATLAB (the language, I use GNU Octave almost exclusively).

Mathematica seems to have a focus on symbolic math and while MATLAB's focus seems to be matrix math.

From a programmers point of view, MATLAB just seems to blow it out of the water, especially if you need to do simulations. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware Mathematica's matrix math isn't anything to look over, but based on what I can tell, MATLAB's out of the box libraries come with so many useful tools that I can't really see myself going to Mathematica.

Also Mathematica's syntax is fuqed and unintuitive.