Development
Programming is my hobby and also an essential part of my research and any job I would like to do. Here I describe my strategy when writing any kind of program.
I use VIM in a linux terminal (I use Debian and Gnome, but there are other options too). I start in Python and write as much as I can in pure Python, there are libraries for almost anything. When something doesn't work, I debug either using "print" statements (if it's a simple problem) or using a wonderful tool winpdb, that is a GUI Python debugger that shows me the source code and contents of all the variables etc. - or I just use the Python pdb module.
When I have a reasonably working code, then either it's fast enough (and I am done), or it isn't, in which case I use Cython to speed it up following these steps:
- Start in pure Python, do your program. It works, or mostly works, but it's slow.
- Find some places, that are slow, put them in a module, remove all dynamic parts so that Cython can compile it (but it's still Python!). You get a nice C file, you compile it to .so, you import it and your program works as before (no several slow layers, like with SWIG or impossible to debug bindings like with Boost.Python).
- Then look at the generated C code and find out why it is slow - it will be slow due to a lot of calls to Python C/API. So instruct Cython to generate a better C code, by giving it advices, using cdefs, or variable declaration. It is only at this point, when you actually need to modify your code.
- Repeat step 3), for numerics stuff, you usually get the same code as I would write by hand. But if you are still not satisfied, write it in C directly, and just call it from Cython.
Sometimes it is needed to call third-party C, C++ or Fortran libraries from Python. If they are C or C++, they can be easily called from Cython in the step 3. above. If they are in Fortran, I use f2py.
Working with all those tools is a joy, not a misery, and that's really important, I would even say crucial.