Guy Griffiths

General purpose interpreted programming language

Widely used by scientists and programmers of all stripes

Supported by many 3rd-party libraries (currently 21,054 on the main python package website)

Free!

Numpy Numerical library for python Written in C, wrapped by python Fast

Scipy Built on top of numpy (i.e. Also fast!) Common maths, science, engineering routines

Matplotlib Hugely flexible plotting library Similar syntax to Matlab Produces publication-quality output

An integrated graphical environment like Matlab (although there are tools which put it in one – e.g. Spyder)

Specifically designed for scientists/mathematicians (but the 3rd-party libraries for plotting/numerical work are some of the best around)

High performance (but it is very easy to wrap C/Fortran libraries in Python code)

Yahoo Maps/GroupsGoogleNASAESRILinux distrosMet OfficeMe

How about several cool things that Python can do?

Interactive prompt is great for experimenting iPython is a fantastic interactive environment I mostly write code in iPython interactively,

then copy it out into a script when I’m done

print is easy and intuitive to use Yes, you should use a proper debugger, but

let’s face it – print statements are quicker and easier.

Well, print statements in python are even quicker and easier than that.

Readable code You have to indent all of your loops,

conditionals, etc. This means that your code will always be

indented in a helpful way Inline documentation

3rd-party libraries Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib are standard

libraries for scientific computing cf-python is written with meteorologists in

mind There are 3rd-party libraries for many,

many things If you want to do something that isn’t

particularly uncommon, there will be a library to do it for you

No. But python can wrap your existing C/Fortran/R code... You can get the benefits of a high-level

language whilst keeping your fast C/Fortran routines

This is what Numpy does (and why Numpy is fast)

...and Matlab code translates pretty easily to python.

A good language to teach Questions you won’t hear if you teach

python:▪ “What does ‘Segmentation fault’ mean?”▪ “Why do I have to click ‘build’ before I run this

every time?”▪ “Do you know where I can download a license for

this so I can use it at home?” Questions you may still hear:▪ “What’s a variable?”▪ “Why do we have to do this?”

Let’s have a look at a few python libraries in action

Firstly, get version 2.7.x. Python 3 is probably more trouble than it’s worth right now.

Windows – Python(x,y) [www.pythonxy.com]This is a scientific/engineering oriented distribution of python. It includes everything you need to get started

Linux – it’s already there! Unless you’re running a very unusual distro (in which case you probably already know what you’re doing).

Mac – it’s already there on OS X, but it’s old. Get a more up-to-date one [www.python.org]

The official python tutorial:http://docs.python.org/tutorial/

Software Carpentry:http://software-carpentry.org/

Dive into Python:http://www.diveintopython.net/

Learn Python the Hard Way:http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

A Byte of Python:http://www.ibiblio.org/g2swap/byteofpython/read/

Python Essential Reference David M. Beazley (Addison Wesley)

Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python LanguageMark Summerfield (Addison Wesley)

Learning PythonMark Lutz (O’Reilly Media)