Why does the MATLAB support for Arduino use a different command syntax?

The Arduino command for configuring the digital pins is pinMode()

eg. pinMode(3,OUTPUT) configures digital pin 3 as an output.

In MATLAB I have to use a different command syntax, namely configureDigitalPin()

eg. configureDigitalPin(a,3,'output')

where 'a' is the arduino object

I am deterred by this because I cannot easily develop my program in MATLAB and deploy on the Arduino without changing alot of code.

I have seen a third syntax which goes like this, a.pinMode(), where 'a' is still the Arduino object.

eg. a.pinMode(3,OUTPUT)

This is much better - the syntax is exactly the same as Arduino syntax, with the 'a.' added. I can easily change this to embed the code in the Arduino by a simple find and replace of 'a.' for '' (nothing). Also I don't have to learn two separate commands for the same command.

Can someone explain how I can enable this final form of the syntax?