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

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2012 11:27:18 +0900
"jrjohansson@example.com" <jrjohansson@example.com> wrote:

> > 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.
> 
> I agree, except with the comment on programming skills ;-) I think it
> takes as much programming skills to write good python programs as it
> takes to write good fortran programs... fortran is not difficult, it's
> just arcane.

And how many PhD students do you know, who actually have programming
skills?

My experience tells me, that even those who write code on a daily basis,
heck, even those whos PhD is based on writing code, are very poor programmers.
They tend to learn only enough to be able to modify the code that someone
else (most probably their predecessor) has written, with very little
understanding of what is actually going on.

And usually it's in vain to tell them, that if they'd sit down for a week
and actually learn the language they are using, they'd be at least twice
as productive. They just tell you that they are not computer scientists
and thus dont need to know that much detail about "computers".

			Attila Kinali
-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?