Python advocacy in scientific computation

[Juho Schultz]

Michael Tobis wrote:
> Someone asked me to write a brief essay regarding the value-add
> proposition for Python in the Fortran community. Slightly modified to
> remove a few climatology-related specifics, here it is.
> 

Thank you - this was very good reading.

> I would welcome comments and corrections, and would be happy to
> contribute some version of this to the Python website if it is of
> interest.
> 

A slight broadening of the perspective could show another advantage:
Python is also used for data processing, at least in astronomy. Modeling 
and processing the data in the same environment is very practical. Spend 
more time on modeling and processing the critical data sections - 
critical data section may depend on model parameters and sampling (which 
is often incomplete and uneven). You also avoid wasting CPU cycles to 
model things not in the data.

A theorist may be perfectly happy with Fortran, and an observer could do 
his stuff with simple scripts. But if they need to work together, Python 
is a very good option.