Python and Flaming Thunder

[miller.paul.w at gmail.com]

On May 13, 10:34 am, hdante <hda... at gmail.com> wrote:

>  The "Flaming Thunder" looks promising, but without being free
> software, it's unlikely it will create a large developer community,
> specially considering both free general purpose and scientific
> programming languages.

I'll agree that software libre has the advantage in creating a
community, but the fact that this language's environment is
proprietary need not be fatal.  Consider the amount of work that gets
done every day using Maple, Matlab, and Mathematica, for instance.  I
like software that's free (as in beer or as in speech) as much as the
next guy, but I paid for the student version of Mathematica, and I
consider it worth every single penny.  I use it *at least* three or
four times a week, for stuff that'd be, at best, extremely tedious or,
at worst, impossible for me to do without it.

I took a quick look at this "Flaming Thunder," and downloaded the
command line Linux executable.  While I haven't tried anything
nontrivial in the language, I have to say it has several things going
for it:

* Cross-platform-ness.  I like the idea of being able to compile the
exact same source code for Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows.  If it
truly is "write once, compile for the world," that's a nice plus.

* Nice web site.  Seriously.  The web site is pretty slick looking,
and that can only be a plus.  The design and color scheme definitely
remind me that this is an environment intended for scientific
computing.

* Nice name.  This has got to be *the* coolest thing about the
language.  I mean, how can you go wrong using a language named
"Flaming Thunder"? :)