<dt><b><a href="http://www.rationaldiscovery.com">Rational Discovery

LLC</a></b></dt>

Rational Discovery provides computational modeling, combinatorial

library design and custom software development services to the

pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical industries. We do a substantial

amount of internal research to develop new approaches for applying

machine-learning techniques to solve chemical problems. Because we're a

small organization and chemistry is a large and complex field, it is

essential that we be able to quickly and easily prototype and test new

algorithms.

<p>For our internal software, we implement core data structures in C

and expose them to Python using Boost.Python. Algorithm development is

done in Python and then translated to C if required (often it's not).

This hybrid development approach not only greatly increases our

productivity, but it also allows "non-developers" (people without C

experience) to take part in method development. Learning C is a

daunting task, but "Python fits your brain." (Thanks to Bruce Eckel for

the quote.)</p>