[tlug] Fortran --> Python (was linux engineer)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

jep200404@example.com writes:

 > More seriously, I hear (but don't know) that there is a slow move 
 > in the scientific community from Fortran to Python. Next month 
 > there is a conference for SciPy (Scientific Python) in Austin, 
 > Texas, USA. 

I didn't go to any, but there were several sessions on scientific
Python (the language in use, as opposed to SciPy, which is an umbrella
project for a number of specific scientific computation packages) at
PyCon in Santa Clara.

The impression I get from traffic on the Python lists (where SciPy is
rarely discussed -- what comes up is when NumPy needs API
clarification from the core) is that in fact "scientific computation"
is done in FORTRAN and/or C/C++ (eg, by BLAS), while Python provides
I/O facilities, data selection, and very high level algorithmic
support.  There's a rather clear division of labor between the
algorithm hackers (in low-level languages) and the "science" side of
the computation.

So I'd say that rather than a *move* from FORTRAN to Python, I'd say
that FORTRAN (and of course C/C++) are still in heavy use, but Python
bindings are making heavy-duty computation available to scientists
without much in the way of programming skills.