It seems that way to me -- PDl, like those other vectorized languages, is useful for comparatively brain intensive (vs. cpu intensive) tasks such as data analysis, while really heavy duty stuff like (say) MHD modeling is best performed down in a lower level compiled language. That said, I do use PDL as a front end for our solar MHD model, which is written in C and can take days to weeks to complete a simulation in 8 CPUs.
(mobile) On Nov 21, 2010, at 9:56 AM, Daniel Carrera <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > Just a general question. I have been doing my masters for a few > months, and it seems to me that we can roughly divide astronomers into > two groups: Observational guys use IDL or maybe MATLAB to do things > like data analysis and images, while theoretical / computational guys > use Fortran or maybe C/C++ to make their computer models. > > Does this sound like a reasonable characterization? If so, is it fair > to say that PDL is mainly geared toward the first group? That seems > reasonable to me. > > Cheers, > Daniel. > -- > No trees were destroyed in the generation of this email, but a large > number of electrons were severely inconvenienced. > > _______________________________________________ > Perldl mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/perldl > _______________________________________________ Perldl mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/perldl
