ptkwt
2/28/2006 6:21:00 PM
In article <b3qdd3-dfr.ln1@lairds.us>, Cameron Laird <claird@lairds.us> wrote:
>In article <y7QIf.39$9r.6@mencken.net.nih.gov>,
>Joe Krahn <krahn@niehs.nih.gov> wrote:
> .
> .
> .
>>Ruby should be a better fit for the typical Fortran programmer. I am
>>surprised Ruby is not more the standard scripting language for
>>scientists. At least some people who know both say that Ruby is better
>>even though Python is (at least for now) more popular.
> .
> .
> .
>Please help me understand what you're writing here. I *think*
>you're saying that Ruby is easier for Fortraneers to learn at
>the syntactic level than Python. I can well imagine that.
>
>There's a distinct meaning of "better fit", though, that I want
>to highlight. I propose that Python has established its "fitness"
>through the record of successful projects implemented as
>Python-Fortran *collaborations*.
This is because Python was there earlier.
> There are several aspects to
>these realizations of partnerships between a couple of different
>languages:
>A. It might well be that two languages need a little
> distance between themselves syntactically to
> "marry" well; if they're too similar at this level,
> there's no gain to a division of labor between
> them.
Maybe so, but I don't see how Ruby is anymore Fortran-like than Python ;-)
>B. Python has a strong tradition of "playing nicely"
> with outside resources. It was one of Python's
> prominent initial goals, back at its invention in
> the late '80s. Ruby also aims to do better at
> this than, for example, Perl, but, as near as I
> can tell, the Ruby community has never emphasized
> cooperation with other languages as much as have
> Pythonistas.
>C. At a technical level, I believe it remains easier
> to bind Python and Fortran than to do so with Ruby
> and Fortran.
There are lots of tools like the dl library, Inline::C (Inline::Fortran
coming?) available in Ruby as well. I forget the details, but didn't someone
earlier in this thread successfully create a Ruby<->Fortran bridge ?
Phil