I agree IDL is a poor tool. However, it is used widely across universities and research laboratories for space science and earths science and this is not proble

I agree IDL is a poor tool. However, it is used widely across universities and research laboratories for space science and earths science and this is not problem exclusive to NASA. Yes, many people use Python, R, or Julia (we use Python in our lab at NASA) but there are people in science who get stuck in their old ways. That said, this article reads like he's from a software engineering branch, not a science group.