Comments for Programming for Scientists

Comment on A big list of programming languages by Design Issues in Modern Programming Languages (Modern Programlama Dillerindeki Tasarım Sorunları) | Ahmet Alp Balkan : Blog

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:34:26 +0000

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Comment on How to…optimise Matlab by Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:24:35 +0000

It’s been a long time since I used Matlab. The last time I used it was to create my final year project using Matlab 6.0. The project was for creating an image compression tool. We were just amateurs at C back then. And when we got our hands on Matlab, we were amazed by the available features in the language.

The program we wrote did excellent image compression though it was a bit slow because we never really thought of optimizing it :)

Comment on A big list of programming languages by G. Gilbert Vaughan

G. Gilbert Vaughan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:20:33 +0000

I’m half-heartedly looking for a language just like Quick Basic – or qB45 – but which can make more use of the graphics card (640×480, 16 colour limit currently), and/or makes use of the sea of “Windows” RAM, rather than just the 640k of “base memory”.
Just (merely !) a “qB45″ which wasn’t knobbled in graphics by XP o/s, would be a great leap forward.
Oh father hear my prayer for I am quite useful with it !!

Comment on “Should I switch to Python?” by Walking Randomly » The rise and rise of Python in computational science

Walking Randomly » The rise and rise of Python in computational science — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:57:32 +0000

[...] Should I switch to Python – Are you a MATLAB user considering the switch? [...]

Comment on 4 ways to become a better programmer by Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:43:54 +0000

Some great advice there on improving as a programmer. I have been procrastinating working on an open source project for some time. I hope to begin as soon as possible as that is the best way to improve myself.

Comment on Stay on target! Ways to help yourself work by Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:36:46 +0000

There was a time when my concentration levels would be quite high. And I would spend some 6-8 hours studying. But that was before the internet became a common household item. Now it is very difficult to concentrate on anything for more than 15-20 minutes as that browser button is just a click away.

My way is to remind yourself whenever the mind gets distracted. Remind yourself about your goal and if it is truly important to you, you will get back to work.

Comment on 10,000 hours and the Scientist-Programmer by Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:31:58 +0000

That is some great advice to follow. And the benefits start even early than 10 years. Even if you are not an expert, you will definitely be on the path and will be a much better programmer than you were earlier.

Comment on “Should I switch to Python?” by gioby

gioby — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:27:26 +0000

If you want to switch to python for doing calculus and matlab-like operations like the ones you describe, you should better look at:

- enthought (http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php), which is basically an enhanced version of numpy/scipy/matplotlib, from the developers of these libraries themselves. It is like a commercial (but academic free) version of Pylab.

- sage (http://www.sagemath.org/), which allows you to write programs that call different syntaxes and scripts in matlab, R, and other programming language, and to do it with a python syntax.

In general, I would not recommend you to switch to python, because it has -way- less libraries for what you want to do compared to Matlab. For the same reason, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to switch from R to python, and consider that I am a python freakie and user myself :-(

The Pylab libraries (numpy+scipy+matplotlib) have seen a lot of improvements lately, but don’t expect too much from them, unless you are wishing to contribute to these libraries.

Comment on Links to some great articles on programming by Gullele

Gullele — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:09:52 +0000

I like the collection, I have gone thru them and they are nice. Thanks for sharing

Comment on “Should I switch to Python?” by Frederick Ross

Frederick Ross — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:07:02 +0000

@Ronald: I stand corrected. Thank you. But it would not be a Scheme in any way, shape, or form. One function per file? No macros? A bare excuse for anonymous functions? No.

@Rich: I will admit here that object oriented programming a la Python has never seemed like a good fit for anything I’ve done, but I learned Lisp before I wrote any object oriented code at all. This may be a peculiarity of my brain.