Ag Stephens - Software page |
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Introduction
As part of my job I have the pleasure of developing software tools for data manipulation and presentation. My
main developments to date have been:
- A Python caching system to support the BADC archive of irregular gridded ECMWF ERA-40 data. A Powerpoint
presentation on the BADC caching system and data delivery via the Live Access Server and
Climate Data Analysis Tools (CDAT) is available
here.
- The NASA Ames Processing in Python (NAppy) package - a set of python modules to read and write the NASA
Ames ASCII data format. It also contains a bridge for converting NASA Ames data to and from NetCDF via CDAT.
- The BADC Data Extractor (dx) - a web-interface to atmospheric science datasets,
providing data selection, sub-setting (in space and time), differencing and conversion. Currently built on
top of CDAT.
- The GeoSpatial Plotting and Animation Tool (GeoSPlAT) - a web-interface for
plotting and animating atmospheric science datasets, currently built on top of
CDAT.
Other software experience
Here is a brief overview of my software experience:
Programming
- Python - having developed most of the above packages in Python I am starting to get the feel of this language
and it is certainly my favourite for its syntactic clarity and its implementation of Object Oriented Programming.
- Perl - used quite extensively for basic scripting until I discovered Python.
- Shell Scripting - when I have to.
- TCL - used once or twice to interact with external code.
- Fortran 77 - learnt it and used during my MSc but never mastered. I can do all the basics such as linking
libraries, compiling, calling subroutines etc, but I'm no expert.
- C and C++ - dabbled a bit but on my list to learn formally. C++ in particular provides a great lower level
tool to bind to Python for heavy duty computing needs.
Operating Systems
- Windows - trying to work away from it but I have a reasonable idea of what goes on as a Windows user.
- Linux/Unix - 4 years usage, still working my way through the layers of understanding.
Packages
- Windows standard packages - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Project, Access, Visio.
- Graphics packages - Photoshop and a few others.
- Data manipulation packages - CDAT, XCONV/CONVSH, GrADS.
- Binding tools - Pyfort and F2PY (connecting fortran to Python).
- GUI tools - Tkinter and Python Mega Widgets.
- more to come when I have time....
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