Hello. Reading this new get back to my mind a debate I have with a friend of mine, maybe you can help us ; )<p>My friend works in the scientific research domain, in chemistry. In his lab he makes simulation of water particles and often he launches simulations that can take even a week to complete. He is using frontan.<p>I am using ruby since a few years and, as usual, I love its simplicity,etc,etc.<p>What I've been always wondering is if would be feasible to use a High Level Language (as Ruby, Python, etc) in a case like his.<p>I understand that fortran is language for the scientific community with loads of libraries but what matter me is the performance.<p>Saying Fortran and (maybe) Python with this library have the same functionalities, would my friend simulations take longer using Python rather than Fortran? how much longer? do you think it worths the jump to a nicer (from the programmer p.o.v.) programming language?<p>What do you think?<p>thanks ; )