Fortran vs Python - Newbie Question

[Ramon Diaz-Uriarte]

On 26 Mar 2007 06:20:32 -0700, Nomad.C at gmail.com <Nomad.C at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK...
> I've been told that Both Fortran and Python are easy to read, and are
> quite useful in creating scientific apps for the number crunching, but
> then Python is a tad slower than Fortran because of its a high level
> language nature, so what are the advantages of using Python for
> creating number crunching apps over Fortran??
> Thanks
> Chris
>

Dear Chris,

Why are you focusing on Python vs. Fortran? There might be other
choices out there you might want to consider, specifically C, O'Caml,
and Ada, since you mention number crunching. When choosing, you should
consider what other requirements you'll have; some people have hinted
at a few, such as portability (I am not saying fortrain ain't
portable) and rapid application development. Will you be doing lots of
string manipulation? Processing text-files? Gluing applications? What
do people around you use? What type of number crunching will you be
doing? Are the libraries available in any of the languages that you
are considering that do some/most of what you want to do? Are you
concernded about concurrent/distributed programming? Is this your
first programming language? Etc, etc, etc. In the end, maybe neither
Python nor Fortran might be the best choices for you.

HTH,

R.





> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>


-- 
Ramon Diaz-Uriarte
Statistical Computing Team
Structural Biology and Biocomputing Programme
Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO)
http://ligarto.org/rdiaz