Productive Small-scale Data Processing using Python
Wansoo Ha · Journal of the Korean Society of Mineral and Energy Resources Engineers · 2014
Python is an object oriented programming language, similar to Perl and Ruby.It supports a dynamic typing and operates using a python interpreter.Static typing languages such as Fortran and C emphasize efficient execution program.On the other hand, Python's design philosophy values productivity of programmers.In general, a Python version of an algorithm is shorter and slower than its Fortran or C versions.Recent development of numerical libraries shortened the runtime of Python numerical programs and many scientists and engineers adopt Python as their programming language.In this study, I compared Python and Fortran programming languages by developing functions of simple algorithms used in seismic data processing.I tried to make Python programs efficient by exploiting numerical libraries.Benchmarking examples show that small-scale data processing programming using Python and Numpy library can be more efficient than that using Fortran language.