In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jean-Paul Calderone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On 26 Mar 2007 06:20:32 -0700, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>OK... >>I've been told that Both Fortran and Python are easy to read, and are > >Python is hugely easier to read. > >>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 > >Fortran is massively faster than Python. > >>language nature, so what are the advantages of using Python for >>creating number crunching apps over Fortran?? > >You can get the speed of fortran in Python by using libraries like >Numeric without losing the readability of Python. > >Jean-Paul
Me, too. A lot of language questions are correctly answered, "Indistinguishable, to within the range of subjective response." This is NOT the case for the readability and performance of Fortran and Python, though; the differences are as massive as Jean-Paul says. HOWEVER, that's all true only in general. As a new- comer to both Fortran and Python, there's a fair chance that the Fortran code you first produce would be so suboptimal as to perform no better than the corresponding Python. My vote, therefore, is this: unless you're in an organization that provides a lot of Fortran support to such beginners as yourself, choose Python. It has all the pertinent advantages. We can discuss secondary concerns at more length, if you wish: Python's better suited than Fortran for a range of other applications you might wish to tackle some day; Python originated from a language- for-beginners project, and truly is something you can start to pick up in a day; your own scientific specialty might be one that's particularly well- endowed with an existing body of code written in Fortran (or Python, or C++, or ...); and so on. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
