| Re: Your experience with other scientific languages? [message #86455 is a reply to message #86453] |
Mon, 11 November 2013 09:59   |
Michael Galloy
Messages: 1114
Registered: April 2006
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Senior Member |
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On 11/11/13, 10:11 AM, Fabien wrote:
> It is not my intention to start a troll-like discussion here. I am
> reading this newsgroup since a couple of years now and I really
> appreciate the friendly tone of this group (I followed some other groups
> where arrogant people argued with other arrogant people... awful).
> Having said this, I am wondering why we are never talking about other
> languages. Is it to avoid trolls like me, or because EXELIS people also
> read this group? (did I emphasize already how much I appreciate the
> reactivity of Mark and Chris on this group? ;-))
I think we don't discuss them here is simply because this is an IDL
newsgroup, though I think your discussion is still appropriate as it
relates IDL to other languages.
> To my point: I am starting a career in academia and my future employer
> and colleagues don't use IDL. I could argue with my future boss and make
> him pay for an IDL license. But I am seriously wondering if I want to do
> this during my whole career (taking the risk to always be the only one
> using IDL), and I am thinking about leaning Python. I've been searching
> a bit for pro and cons, and since I am in the atmospheric sciences I
> came to this website for example:
> http://pyaos.johnny-lin.com/?p=544
>
> Such a topical argument can last for ever, starting with the pros and
> cons of open-source VS commercial softwares. So I will try to limit the
> discussion to a couple of points:
>
> - Map Projections: pyproj relies on the state-of-the art proj.4, and can
> do Datum shifts (it seems). IDL's system is quite old and can't do datum
> shifts.
> - Graphics: I read in a VISualize presentation that IDL's objective was
> to be "better than Python" in plotting (can't find the PDF anymore).
> Does that mean that Python is really good at plotting?
> - Statistics: my feelings says that Python probably has many more tools
> "out-of-the-box" due to the larger community.
> - Easiness of use: I am a Linux user so I am not afraid of installing
> some packages, but I'm told that python is quite complicated in this
> respect.
>
> My question: did some of you have experience with python or similar
> languages and if yes, what was your impressions *from the IDL user
> perspective*? Any thoughts are appreciated!
I like Python and have used it for occasional projects. Back when I was
using it more frequently, it was a difficult task to collect and build
all the third-party packages required to do scientific programming. I
think that is mostly solved by packages such as Anaconda
(store.continuum.io/cshop/anaconda). If you have to do something outside
the normal realm of scientific programming, like web programming, Python
gives you a lot of choices.
Mike
--
Michael Galloy
www.michaelgalloy.com
Modern IDL: A Guide to IDL Programming (http://modernidl.idldev.com)
Research Mathematician
Tech-X Corporation
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