[Newbies] report / graph generator

[Danny Chan]

If you work in a command line/ batch job friendly environment, I can 
definitely recommend python with scipy and matplotlib. In my previous job I 
used this combination for simulation work on Unix platforms, and most of the 
times it was even faster than the dedicated Fortran programs written in the 
company.

I am looking into squeak because I am now in a company where Windows is used 
by most people (although Linux needs to be supported, too). Also it must be 
possible to use the tools on any computer without much setup work. My python 
scripts didn't work most of the time because of differences in the 
interpreter version installed, differences in the environment variables, 
sometimes even the different command line shells. Working with lots of 
scripts on the command line was ok on Unix, but it is a pain on Windows. 
Something like Smalltalk images would be handy here, and the development 
environment is really nice. 

I think I will try to wrap a few open source libraries like plplot and rlib, 
maybe I can tackle larger problems once I have solutions for basic problems 
like generating a good looking graph. 

Smalltalk really could be a great environment for scientists and engineers. 
The development tools are much better than what you get for Matlab for 
example. It just seems that the libraries are missing. But since Python has a 
lot of bindings to all kinds of scientific libraries (missing only the 
development environment), it should be possible to have something like this 
in Squeak/Smalltalk too.

It would be great to have something like ScientificSqueak just like Python has 
scipy... 

Danny


Am Montag, 31. März 2008 17:18:43 schrieb David Finlayson:
> Danny -
>
> I am learning squeak for exactly the same reasons.
>
> Up until a month or so ago, I did all my data analysis in C programs.
> A funny thing happened when my workstation was upgraded to an 8-core
> machine: my programs became I/O bound at a work load of 2 to 3 (ideal
> would be 8). My CPUs are way faster than my disk drives. This
> situation got me thinking about going back to dynamic languages since
> I've got plenty of cycles to burn on this new computer. Why not
> Python? Why not Smalltalk?
>
> I have all the usual reservations about Squeak/Smalltalk. Does Squeak
> have the libraries to develop data analysis programs? Will it fit in
> to our existing infrastructure? Will people except and use software
> tools written in Squeak? Will I be able to share my code with
> colleagues? Not sure about the answers to any of these questions.
>
> Right now I am just working my way through the books and tutorials to
> get a feel for the language and Squeak environment.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
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