Earth - modules for geophysical modelling in Perl.
Earth 1.01
Why Perl? I have several reasons. To mention some of the most important:
Perl is available on an incredible range of platforms, and modules and scripts typically run unmodified. As Larry says: ``portability should be the default''. A scientist shouldn't have to worry about getting libraries installed, but should be able to get on with 'interesting stuff' as quickly as possible.
A lot of time is spended developing modelling tools, even if performance is not the main issue. Given total time as the sum of time spent developing a tool, and the time running it, there is a balance upto which small scripted tools will beat tweeked compiled tools. This balance point favors Perl even more when the tools need to be modified often. Of course scripted tools are also useful for developing, testing and debugging algorithms before implementing these in other languages.
Perl was designed to easily handle large data files, need I expand?
I generally like an object oriented approach to programming. However, the code is intended for geophysicists, and although some of them I know are slowly weened from F77, asking them to pick up OOP on the side is just too much.
Carth3(3), Coords(3), Rotate(3),
Plate(3), Nuvel1A(3).
These modules rely on each other, and should really be distributed together. There's no guarantee that anything will work as designed when modules of different vintage are combined.
The histories of the individual modules can be found in the source, at the top of each file.
Although I try to test the code, I have no doubt that some serious bugs are lurking throughout the modules. Stay alert, scrutinize results, do whatever you need to convince yourself that nothing went wrong, and (very important), inform me of any bug you have discovered, preferrably with a working patch.
Implement proper tests for the modules.
check all the pod for consistency, style and spelling.
Joor Loohuis, loohuis@geo.uu.nl
Copyright (c) 1999 Joor Loohuis. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Since I'm a scientist, and I get credited for references to my work, I kindly ask that you refer to me when you have benefitted from this code in a scientific context. Mail me for the most recent information.