[RenardP]

Hello,

I would like to see your opinions about choosing a programming language for CFD.

I think that for simple 1D application a language like Matlab, Maple or Mathematica can be used as a starting point, after all when you learn CFD you want to test algorithms and not to became a professional programmer. Same considerations can be applied to the new "managed" languages C# ...

For "simple" 2D and 3D applications any compiled language (C/C++, Fortran ...) that allows you to use MPI or OpenMP will do.

In the actual stage of computer development I don't think we can use an interpreted language for large applications. Sure the companies that sold Matlab, Maple or Mathematica will claim their software can use efficiently the new multi core architectures. But I ask, has anyone tried to implement for example in Matlab a large CFD code ( a small 2D application can easily have more then 10000 lines of code) ?

An advanced CFD application will actually use a combination of interpreted and compiled code in order to remain flexible.

What do you think of combinations like Python and C/C++ (Fortran) or (my favorite) Ruby and C/C++ ?