Python hits the spot

[d2002xx]

Hello.

Siegfried Gonzi <siegfried.gonzi at kfunigraz.ac.at> wrote in message news:<3D1482AE.8FA299D8 at kfunigraz.ac.at>...
> In the following I got the advice to install a real user system on my
> laptop. Okay, I bought Linux SuSE 8.0 and installed it on my laptop (256
> MB RAM, 1000 MHz Celeron). I also installed Python 2.2 (the ActivePython
> version, otherwise I couldn't install idle due to the annoying
> "free_software_garbage_2_weeks_installation_nightmare").
> 

You didn't use offical python distribution, right? It's impossible to
show the "free_software_garbage_2_weeks_installation_nightmare".

If the binary version can't work, just use source-code and compile
yourself. Python 2.2.1 works well on my computer. The difference is
that before compiling, you need to install some XXX-devel.rpm if you
want use these python modules. (such as openssl-devel)

> 1. After starting the process from within idle the complete system
> freezes after the first wavelength (after about 20 minutes). I couldn't
> kill a process or open a different session (via F2) in order to kill
> python. The last resort: turn off the power supply.
> 

NOT use unoffical python distributions, they may change some thing.
And I NEVER see similiar problems on offical version, even in beta
version.

Also, I recommand that NOT use idle, because anything using tk are
very slow, if you want an IDE, there is http://boa-constructor.sf.net 
, it doesn't complete yet, but works very well, and provides some cool
features such as UML. It uses wxPython, which is much faster than
tkinter, there is http://www.wxpython.org

> 2. I thought it is better to start the process from the command line and
> in a X terminal: python forcing.py
> The same behavior as aforementioned: last resort: power supply. That is
> really good and fine because a Linux system really is greedy for "shut
> down immediately".
> 

It may be due to X window.

> My conclusion: I will rewrite my simulation in Fortran 90 and will
> abadon Python. Python is maybe good for some small scripts but not
> appropiate for serious programming.

Your conclusion is whole wrong! Do you know how many big companies use
Zope? See http://www.zope.com/ZopeClientList

Well, I don't know much about fortran, but if you just want to do
something about math, NO python, it will be slow (at least now).