On 11/14/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb / cesmail.net> wrote:
> Well ...
>
> 1. Ruby is the newest language in my toolbox, running something like six
> years behind R and ten years behind Perl. The other side of that coin,
> though, is that I've *never* learned Python and don't plan to. :)

sure.  But I'm not clear about the point you're trying to make.   What
am I missing?

> 2. As long as your focus is results ASAP, you're always going to favor
> the old tools and quick hacks like shelling out to the command line
> interface of your favorite open-source application for the domain of
> interest.

exactly.  which is the problem.  at least, this is specifically the
issue with my involvement / progress.  I'm willing to give it some
time, thought and code - but I don't feel I currently don't have the
time (nor coding efficiency) to actually make this coalesce into a
proper project.

So like you say, the general approach has to change.  If a small group
got interested and focused on it, I think the momentum could go a long
way.  The immediate difficulty is agreeing on some features.
ThoseThatCameBefore have made many workable solutions, several of
which I've used religiously (e.g. NArray and rb-gsl).

> 3. As I noted on another post, there is a "scientific Ruby" project. So
> there is a place for "us".

yes.  A good reminder.

Cameron