[Tutor] Hi

[Vick]

Hi,

Thanks for replying!

I understand as you said that since it was the very first language available
to them therefore scientists at large got stuck with it as I presume it
would have become the primary programming language example given in their
textbooks or study materials.

However your reply does not answer the first part of the proposition of my
question!

Given that all scientists like to code in Fortran but does it mean that
Python is inferior to it in terms of mathematical / scientific computation?

Thanks
Vick



-----Original Message-----
From: William Ray Wing [mailto:wrw at mac.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 11 April, 2015 17:40
To: Vick
Cc: William R. Wing; webmaster at python.org; tutor at python.org
Subject: Re: [Tutor] Hi


> On Apr 11, 2015, at 8:32 AM, Vick <vick1975 at orange.mu> wrote:
> 

[byte]

> However I recently talked to a guy online and he told me the 
> following, which actually intrigued and surprised me:
> 
> "The vast majority of numerical codes in science, including positional 
> astronomy, are written in Fortran and C/C++.  If you wish to use these 
> codes in minority and less efficient languages such as Python and VBA, 
> learning to translate this code into those languages is a skill you 
> will have to acquire."
> 
> The "codes" in question are referring to a query I posed to him 
> regarding the GUST86 theory on the computational position of Uranus' 
> natural satellites authored by Laskar and Jacobson in 1987. The "code" 
> is readily downloadable in Fortran at the IMCCE ftp site.
> 
> But his statement is insinuating that Python is inferior to Fortran as 
> a mathematical tool and that all of the scientific community prefers 
> to use Fortran.
> 
> My question is simple: Is he right or wrong?
> 
> 

He is probably right, but only because most large scientific codes have
historical roots that date back to the days when FORTRAN was the only
language readily available on the computers scientists used.  Even today,
FORTRAN compilers can frequently optimize typical scientific code to tighter
(faster) executable code than the compilers for other, more modern, richer
languages.  HOWEVER, that said, more and more scientific code is being
written with Python as the organizing language which calls mathematical
libraries written in FORTRAN.  Libraries like numpy make heavy use of
FORTRAN arrays, while allowing the scientific programmer to concentrate on
the higher levels of the science being modeled.

Bill

> 
> Thanks
> 
> Vick
> 
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