Why isn't the MATLAB command just available in the terminal for OS X?

I was to use the matlab command in the terminal and it seems I have to do extra stuff for it to be available. How can it "just be available" without me needing to do extra stuff?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

In my ~/.bash_profile I stored

alias matlab="/Applications/MATLAB_R2017a.app/bin/matlab -nojvm -nodesktop"

If you prefer, you could create /usr/local/bin/matlab with content

#!/bin/ksh
/Applications/MATLAB_R2017a.app/bin/matlab -nojvm -nodesktop

and chmod +x /usr/local/bin/matlab