On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Skipper Seabold <jsseab...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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?
I also agree. It will improve with the newly redesigned website for scipy.org However, I cannot find the link right now for the development version of the new website. Josef > > Skipper > _______________________________________________ > NumPy-Discussion mailing list > NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org > http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion > _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion