Non-Python languages for Astronomy

Julia Astro

Julia is easy to program, runs fast, and pretty much everything needed for modern scientific programming is built in as standard. And it even uses unicode variable names, for those who think $\pi$ is more readable than np.pi (it is!).

For astronomers, Julia Astro is working towards doing much of what AstroPy can do:

• Website: juliaastro.github.io/
• GitHub: https://github.com/JuliaAstro

Good software, bad timing (unfortunately), just as most professional astronomers have converged on Python as their common language.

IDL

Departing from the open source theme, this is the exact opposite: expensive, proprietary, tightly controlled. I haven’t used it and probably never will, but some (many?) professional astronomers clearly still regard it as essential to their work.

• Website: harrisgeospatial.com/Software-Technology/IDL
• GitHub: you must be joking!

GDL

The GNU Data Language aims for full compatibility with IDL but under a GPL (aggressively open-source) license. I found it easy to install on Linux Mint but haven’t used it enough for an informed opinion.

• GitHub: //github.com/gnudatalanguage/gdl
• Docs, tutorials, etc: they refer you to the IDL resources

IRAF

IRAF Image Reduction and Analysis Facility is used for a wide range of tasks pertaining to optical and infrared data processing. STScI has released pyRAF, which allows Python scripting of IRAF tasks, a great advantage when trying to batch process data!