Posts from 2017-09
Why Python does so well in scientific computing
A few days ago, I noticed this tweet in my timeline:
I 'still' program in C. Why? Hint: it's not about performance. I wrote an essay to elaborate... appearing at Onward! https://t.co/pzxjfvUs5B
— Stephen Kell (@stephenrkell) September 5, 2017
That sounded like a good read for the weekend, which it was. The main argument the author makes is that C remains unsurpassed as a system integration language, because it permits interfacing with "alien" code, i.e. code written independently and perhaps even in different languages, down to assembly. In fact, C is one of the few programming languages that lets you deal with whatever data at the byte level. Most more "modern" languages prohibit such interfacing in the name of safety - the only memory you can access is memory allocated through your safe language's runtime system. As a consequence, you are stuck in the closed universe of your language.
Tags: computational science, computer-aided research, emacs, mmtk, mobile computing, programming, proteins, python, rants, reproducible research, science, scientific computing, scientific software, social networks, software, source code repositories, sustainable software
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