Re: [igraph] Language remmendations

[Tom Backer Johnsen]

Gábor Csárdi wrote:
> Tom, I will be short, because I think there is not much to say, Tamas
> already wrote what he thinks is relevant about the Python interface
> and I don't know any better than him.
>
> Personally I think that if you want to do math and you know R fairly
> well, then there is no point in switching to Python. Both R and Python
> are nice languages with extensive sets of third party packages. The
> main difference I see is that the R functionality is shifted towards
> math and statistics. What Python offers is a more diverse set of
> extensions (e.g. if you want your program to talk to web-servers
> directly, then Python is a better choice) and a somewhat cleaner
> language (IMHO). If you want to create sophisticated figures, then R
> has an advantage in this, I believe.

Sure.  R is very powerful for math and stats as well as graphics, but is 
slightly inconsistent in some areas.  I would not mind using what you 
characterize as a "slightly cleaner language".
> In summary, I would say go with the language you know better. But of
> course learning Python is fun,

Exactly.

Tom