On Jun 26, 2006, at 1:58 PM, David Whysong wrote:
IRAF has moved to Python (pyraf), as has AIPS++ (casapy). In a few
years, python will probably be the standard interface language for
Python seems to have some schizophrenia between Numerical Python,
numarray, and Numeric each of which is somewhat compatible (but not
completely) with the other! Where 'numpy' and 'scipy' fit in I don't
know - it's
all very confusing except apparently one set is recommended for long
term
support and the other set is recommend for getting real work done
now. Not
a good situation.
It also appears that STSCI have taken over numerical python development
which fills me with fear...
astronomical data reduction... at least, for those people who don't
use IDL.
It is definitely more familiar looking to people than perl. On the other
hand perl is more like C once one learns to ignore all the $'s and @'s!
As much as I like PDL, it's capabilities and completeness are lacking
in some areas compared to Python - notably, the graphical plotting
library used in casapy, which is very impressive.
I suppose you mean matplotlib? That always seems to be touted. I have
played with it and to be honest I have not been that impressed.
The main thing is the OO graphics but the ease of achieving what
I consider pub-quality and the construction of complex plots were to me
inferior to PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT. This may of course reflect my
unfamiliarity and bias!
Of course the plot appeared in a nice widget, but there seemed to be
only a very
basic set of GUI controls. I then did what I always do when faced
with a plot
widget and gave it 1E5 points to plot and it did the usual thing such
plot
widgets do - become unusably slow! Too many of these OO things are
written by programmers
who do not realise scientists like to plot a LOT of data.
I'm not convinced that a special-purpose linux distro would be useful
for most potential users. It's better to have a good binary .rpm or
similar package. A lot of people probably don't want to build from
source, and a custom distro is only useful to people who want a
computer dedicated to running PDL.
No you misunderstand - I meant a PDL-distro not a linux distro.
i.e. a binary statically linked version of PDL + libs which sits in
it's own directory
tree and runs on as many versions of Linux as possible.
rpm's, deb's and what not are fine in principle but the problem with
these is there are too many
bloody versions!
- Karl
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