Is D a good choice for embedding python/octave/julia

[cym13 via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 13:02:16 UTC, Bastien wrote:
> Hi, apologies for what may be a fairly obvious question to some.
>
> ## The background:
> I have been tasked with building software to process data 
> output by scientific instruments for non-experts - basically 
> with GUI, menus, easy config files (JSON or similar) - and the 
> ability to do some serious number crunching.
>
> My background is python/octave and would be happy building it 
> in python (or god forbid, even octave), but it would end up 
> clunky and slow once ported to a standalone executable. Hence 
> why I'm looking at other languages. D caught my eye.
>
> ## The problem:
> The sticking point is unless I commit the rest of my life to 
> maintaining this software, I can't write it all in D. The 
> algorithms change/are improved yearly; the output format from 
> the instrument changes once in a while and therefore these need 
> to be easily scripted/modified by other (non-programming) 
> scientists and the community that only really know python and 
> octave.
>
> Essentially I'd like a D front end, and a D back-end that does 
> most of the memory and data management but calls and interprets 
> .py, .m and/or .jl scripts (python, matlab, julia) to know how 
> to treat the data. This leaves the py/m/jl scripts visible to 
> be edited by the end user.
>
> ## The question:
> Can it be done?
> Does this entirely defeat the point of using D and I should 
> just code it in python because of the added overheads?
>
>
> Thanks for your help!
> B


I don't have much experience in mixing python and D but here's my 
take on it:

D is a great language but it's not a great glue language. I know 
of no
binding to Julia but good bindings to python exist (pyd as said 
above).
However, if what you want to keep in python is the algorithms 
themselves then
I don't see the point. If I were to mix the two languages I'd use 
python to
do the user interface, some module interface in order to link the 
tool to
others maybe, but the algorithm would definitely be the one thing 
I would do
in D because that's what D is for.