Why python???

[Michael Peuser]

"John J. Lee" <jjl at pobox.com>
> OK.  (actually, um, do ASICs have any code in them at all?  can't
> actually remember what they are...)
>
Fascinating stuff! Goggle also for VHDL and FPGA. And yes, ASICs and FPGAs
are programmed and that might turn out to become one of the greater problems
in the next years.

(Alex, please don't comment, if possible)

>
> Indeed, IIRC David Beazley wrote SWIG for just that purpose
> (controlling molecular dynamics simulations of some kind from Python).
> I think there's a paper about it, probably on the SWIG site.
>
> Plenty of other examples, of course.  Tcl is still quite popular for
> this purpose, since that's what Ousterhout designed it for!  And I
> know Python has been ported to various Cray machines.

With respect to "glue languages" this has to be expected. They probably will
also use their job control language ;-)
Notice that there is no longer any Cray among the Top 10 of supercomputing.

My former argument refered to the fact that most supercomputers are build to
utmost performance. It makes no sense to degrade that by some in-between
virtual machine. The argument of programmers (=programming scientists) cost
and productivity does not hold so strictly in academic circles.

Kindly
Michael P
>
>
> John