[Radiance-general] Research tools: who what which how?

[Alex Mead]

I would agree with a lot that's been said so far. My two cents:

Pick the language that's best for the project at hand, not one you just
"know".

For me, a quick script is best written in Python (I'm very familiar with
syntax/semantics of the language), but if I'm starting a "real" project, I
would look at the tasks needed to be done and how best to do them (e.g.
available data structures, API's, object oriented or not) then look at
different languages, first the ones I know, then even check out others.

Sometimes, however, with larger projects where speed is starting to be a
concern, you need to pick languages based on computation. For example, C
and Fortran are much faster than say Matlab for large matrix manipulation.

This is a very DEEP topic, which some EECS/CS people spend their whole
lives answering.

Good luck in your projects!

- Alex Mead




On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 9:05 AM, Guglielmetti, Robert <
Robert.Guglielmetti at nrel.gov> wrote:

> Ruby and Perl are both more relatable to Bash, as they all are interpreted
> loosely-typed languages.
>
>
> On 4/13/16, 9:28 AM, "Christopher Rush" <Christopher.Rush at arup.com> wrote:
>
> >I focus on bash because little snippets help just as much on the standard
> >terminal as they do in a script. I'm not writing plugins so I've never
> >thought about API compatibility, but only how quickly I can figure out
> >how to do what I need. I had two intro courses to C++ long ago in high
> >school and college, so as my "native tongue" of programming, anything I
> >can relate to that tends to be most comfortable to me.
> >
> >I've picked up a few python snippets from the web for large data file
> >manipulation. I don't find the language very intuitive from the few
> >examples I've used, but it definitely handles data well.
> >
> >I've never even investigated Ruby or PERL. Do both handle large data sets
> >quickly and efficiently? Is either one more relatable to bash or C++?
> >
> >Regarding Randolph's original question, I suppose I've had some LISP
> >exposure through AutoCAD but not at all recently. And more recent working
> >experience with MATLAB and Mathematica.
> >
> >-Chris
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-- 
Alex Mead
(616) 901-2479, UC Berkeley Systems Engineering Ph.D. (expected 2016),
www.alex-mead.com

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