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	<title>Programming for Scientists &#187; Choosing a programming language</title>
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	<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com</link>
	<description>Software development wisdom and common-sense for the scientist-programmer</description>
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		<title>&#8220;Should I switch to Python?&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/11/17/should-i-switch-to-python/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/11/17/should-i-switch-to-python/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:34:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rich</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Case studies/examples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming languages]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=613</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ 
Rich has recently been considering switching to the Python programming language.  Currently, Matlab is the language of choice in his department for rapid development and prototyping of code.  It&#8217;s very good at this, but Mathworks (the company who produces Matlab) have been tinkering with the licencing terms, leading to hassles where none should exist.  [...]


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		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
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		<title>The basics of &#8230; Python</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/07/21/the-basics-of-python/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/07/21/the-basics-of-python/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:46:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ben</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The basics of...]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[languages]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Python]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=569</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[



Image via Wikipedia



Python (named after the TV series Monty Python&#8217;s Flying Circus, not the snake) is a high level programming language that aims to have a clear syntax and only one correct way of doing something. This post will look at how it can be used for scientific computing.
HistoryPython was written by Guido van Rossum [...]


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		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/07/21/the-basics-of-python/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The basics of&#8230;IDL</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/02/23/the-basics-ofidl/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2009/02/23/the-basics-ofidl/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:04:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rich</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The basics of...]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[basics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IDL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=447</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[IDL is the Interactive Data Language (not to be confused with another computing IDL, Interface Description Language ), which as the name suggests is very useful for the analysis and processing of data.  It&#8217;s very popular in particular areas of science, because it&#8217;s quick to code in, has lots of support for data manipulation and has [...]


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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>The basics of&#8230;R</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/12/08/the-basics-ofr/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/12/08/the-basics-ofr/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:00:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rich</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The basics of...]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming languages]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[R programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=364</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[R is a free programming language designed to be good at statistics and graphics.  It&#8217;s downloadable for free and has lots of built-in functionality for maths, statistics and graphics operation.  It also has an active community that develops new add-on packages (libraries) and can be a good option to ask for help, if you&#8217;re really [...]


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		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
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		<title>The basics of&#8230;Matlab</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/11/17/the-basics-ofmatlab/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/11/17/the-basics-ofmatlab/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:58:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rich</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The basics of...]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[basics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[matlab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming languages]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=342</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s important to know the basic features of any language you&#8217;re programming in.  We don&#8217;t just mean the syntax or whether the language is dynamically or statically typed (although these are very important); you also need to know what the language is good for, what it&#8217;s not so good for (and why), and any particular [...]


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		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Examples of how to choose a programming language</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/09/01/examples-of-how-to-choose-a-programming-language/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/09/01/examples-of-how-to-choose-a-programming-language/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ben</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming languages]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=151</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Following on from our articles on choosing a programming language (I and II) and answering a request from one of our readers, this post gives a couple of concrete examples of the process of choosing programming languages.  We&#8217;ve taken them from our own experiences, to illustrate the sorts of considerations one might face in the [...]


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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A big list of programming languages</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/08/22/a-big-list-of-programming-languages/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/08/22/a-big-list-of-programming-languages/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:00:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ben</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[languages]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[list]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scientific]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=46</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a resource post on picking a programming language.  It's a big list of programming languages that you might consider using for your scientific software project, or that you might encounter as the result of using legacy, or inherited, code


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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Choosing a programming language &#8211; II</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/08/21/choosing-a-programming-language-ii/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/08/21/choosing-a-programming-language-ii/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rich</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming languages]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=14</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is continuation from Part 1. Read that first!
In this post we&#8217;re going to consider the question, &#8220;is a given programming language appropriate for the project?&#8221;. You will need to judge whether a given language is appropriate for the problem you&#8217;re trying to solve and, in particular, is it more appropriate than another language. The [...]


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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Choosing a programming language- I</title>
		<link>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/08/20/choosing-a-programming-language-i/</link>
		<comments>http://www.programming4scientists.com/2008/08/20/choosing-a-programming-language-i/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:06:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ben</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Choosing a programming language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming languages]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.programming4scientists.com/?p=10</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ 
While our aim in this blog is to be language-agnostic, obviously you do need to pick a language in which to write your software.  In this and the next post, we&#8217;re going to explore some of the considerations to selecting that language.  Before starting a new project it is always worth thinking about the [...]


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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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