Re: help with future application

["Mark Hadfield" <m.hadfield(at)niwa.cri.nz>]

"Phillip David" <phillip_david@xontech.com> wrote in message
397F4604.B0F7025E@xontech.com">news:397F4604.B0F7025E@xontech.com...
> Peter Brooker wrote:
> >
> > We are presently considering how to handle simulation requirements for
> > future technologies. (Present technologies are handled well by
> > commercial codes). As such, we have access to various internal and
> > university codes of which we have the source code. These codes are in
> > C and FORTRAN.  The problem is that we have to link these codes together
> > and add GUIs to every thing to make them more user friendly. Also, once
> > a new model appears in the literature, we want to code this up as fast
> > as possible to try this out.
> Peter;
>
> In fact, if the primary thing you're looking to do is to code up a GUI,
> you might want to check out TCL (Tool Command Language).  It's a
> powerful language if that's all you're trying to do.  I haven't used it
> myself, but know of a number of successful projects that use this
> approach, and can work quickly to get the GUI up and running.

Another possibility in the same vein is Python:

http://www.python.org/

Like TCL and Perl, it is oriented towards scripting and rapid application
development but (as far as I can tell) the base language is more elegant &
scalable. There is a package called Numeric Python that makes numeric
calculation in Python feasible:

http://numpy.sourceforge.net/

I have used Python for a few small text-processing utilities & have
considered it as an alternative to IDL (as a language it's *much* nicer) but
it doesn't have the history of application to numerics and graphics that IDL
has. However I think it would be very well suited to tying together modules
written in C and Fortran, and I believe it is being used for this at
Lawrence Livermore. The current maintainer for Numeric Python is Paul
Dubois. He writes a regular column in Computers in Physics and has covered
Python in the past.

---
Mark Hadfield
m.hadfield@niwa.cri.nz  http://katipo.niwa.cri.nz/~hadfield/
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research
PO Box 14-901, Wellington, New Zealand