On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Christopher Barker <chris.bar...@noaa.gov> wrote: > Wayne Watson wrote: >> Yes, I'm just beginning to deal with the contents of NumPy, SciLab, and >> SciPy. They all have seemed part of one another, but I think I see how >> they've divided up the game. > > For the record: > > I know this is a bit confusing, particularly for someone used to an > integrated package like Matlab, etc, but there is a lot of power an > flexibility gained by the divisions: > > Python: is a general-purpose, extensible programming language > > Numpy: is a set of package of classes, functions, etc that provide > facilities for numeric computation -- primarily a n-d array class and > the utilities to use it. > > Matplotlib (MPL): is a plotting package, built on top of numpy -- it was > originally designed to somewhat mimic the plotting interface of Matlab. > MPL is the most commonly used plotting package for numpy, but by no > means the only one. > > Pylab: Is a package that integrates matplotlib and numpy and an > assortment of other utilities into one namespace, making it more like > Matlab -- personally, I think you should avoid using it, it makes it a > bit easier to type code, but harder to know where the heck what you are > doing is coming from. > > SciPy: Is a broad collection of assorted utilities that facilitate > scientific computing, built on Numpy -- it is also sometimes used as an > umbrella term for anything connected to scientific computing with Python > (i.e. the SciPy conferences) > > > These distinctions are a bit confusing (particularly MPL-numpy), because > MPL includes a number of utility functions that combine computation and > plotting: like "hist", which both computes a histogram, and plots it as > bar chart in one call -- it's a convenient way to perform a common > operation, but it does blur the lines a bit! > > By the way -- there is also potentially a bit of confusion as to how MPL > uses/interacts with the command line and GUI toolkits. This is because > MPL can be used with a number of different GUI front-ends (or none), and > they tend to take over control from the command line. Which brings up to: > > iPython: an enhanced python interactive interpreter command line system. > It adds many nice features that make using python in interactive mode > nicer. IN particularly, it adds a "--pylab" mode that helps it play well > with MPL. You won't regret using it! > > >> I thought I'd look through Amazon >> for books on Python and scientific uses. I found almost all were written >> by authors outside the US, and none seemed to talk about items like >> matplotlib. > > FWIW, a book about MPL has just been published -- I don't know any more > about it, but I'm sure google will tell you. > >> Is there a matplotlib or Pylab mailing list? > > There certainly is: > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users > > And yes, that is the place for such questions. > > > HTH, > > -Chris >
Well put, Chris. It took me a long time get my head around these distinctions, and then only when others pointed out my errors in understanding. This kind of info might be useful to other newcomers somewhere... <http://www.scipy.org/History_of_SciPy>? Thoughts on posting this on the wiki here? Skipper _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion