[Beowulf] python & Lush on a cluster (Newbie question)

[Sean Dilda]

Rolando Espinoza La Fuente wrote:

>Hi :)
>
>(my english isn't very good...)
>
>I'll build a basic beowulf cluster for numerical "research" (i hope),
>what do you think about using python and lush for programming on the
>cluster?
>
>  
>
A number of my users use python for their jobs.  However, the real 
number crunching isn't done by python.  Instead they have 3rd party 
python modules like SciPy or numarray which do the heavy lifting.  And 
those python modules are usually compiled C code.  This way they get 
some of the speedups of running compiled C code combined with the ease 
of structuring their program in python.

I haven't benchmarked or anything.  But I'm betting that python with 
compiled C modules still isn't as fast as pure C code.  On the other 
hand, using python may cause your researchers to code and debug the 
program much quicker.

>Anybody has comments about lush?
>
>Better way (language... than C/Fortran) for programming (numerical
>apps) on the cluster?
>  
>

Traditionally the HPC community is a big user of Fortran.  Although I've 
never coded in it, I'm told its wonderful for dealing with large 
matrices.  C is also quite popular.