Is python a good choice for this task?

[Ron Lau]

On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 14:51:25 -0600, Fernando Pérez wrote:

> Ron Lau wrote:
> 
>> My question is, What language is best suited for this? Perl, Python, or
>> shell scripts?
> 
> Well, from each of the groups you posted to you'll get a different answer. But 
> of course, two of them will be wrong. You should use python :)
> 
> Kidding aside, such a simple task can be done in any of those without any 
> effort. I'd still suggest python because it's a better language than the 
> others for a number of things (yes, I've used all three extensively). 
> Especially if you have a scientific computing background: if you poke around 
> the web a bit, you'll find that python is becoming very popular in scientific 
> computing circles, and for good reason. See http://scipy.org/ or  
> http://mayavi.sourceforge.net/ for useful things in this direction.
> 
> The task you described will hardly illustrate the differences between these 
> languages. But when you decide you want to control your fortran CFD code 
> through a high-level language, load NetCDF or HDF5 data files, visualize them 
> with VTK, generate webpages out of the plot results, python will really begin 
> to shine. I recommend you read: 
> http://www.python.org/workshops/1997-10/proceedings/beazley.html before 
> making this decision. It's written from the viewpoint of a scientific 
> computing person, and while a bit old, it remains almost 100% true today. The 
> parts that have changed is simply that many of the tasks described in that 
> article are _far_ easier to do today than they were then.
> 
> Welcome!
> 
> f.
> 
> ps. Other useful links for python and scientific computing:
> http://www.pfdubois.com/numpy/
> http://starship.python.net/crew/hinsen/
> http://w3.pppl.gov/~hammett/comp/python/python.html

 

OK THEN! python it is.

So I guess I'll be back later begging for help.

:P

R.