Application Development Environment assessment table

Development environment	OPeNDAP/NetCDF	SQL (CRUD)	SQL (ORM)	Numerical Methods	Visualization	Easy to learn	Freely available	Large user base	Support community
Matlab	read & write
Perl	write
Python	read & write
Java	read & write
Ferret	read & write (grid only)

Assessment criteria

• OPeNDAP/NetCDF: For write there needs to be a library available to create NetCDF files. For read there needs to be a capability (library or toolkit) to read both grid and structure DAPs.
• SQL (CRUD): Ability to perform Create, Read, Update, Delete operations in a relational database.
• SQL (ORM): The language as libraries to permit Object Relational Mapping, which makes it easier to use relational data in an object oriented environment.
• Numerical methods: Common numerical methods are available such as those found in the Numerical Recipes book.
• Visualization: Capability to produce common scientific graphics (multi-axis XY plots, histograms, scatter plots, color-filled contour plots, vector time series plots, geographic plots, etc.)
• Easy to learn: This is rather subjective, but a discriminating parameter is whether professional software engineering skills are required, or if the language can be "picked up" by someone with scientific technical skills.
• Freely available: Yes, this means free - i.e. you don't have to pay for a license.
• Large user base: This means that more than perhaps 100 people use it from around the world.
• Support community: Is there a user group where you can post questions and get timely answers back.