Python advocacy in scientific computation

[Alex Martelli]

Terry Hancock <hancock at anansispaceworks.com> wrote:

> In fact, if I had one complaint about Python, it was the
> "with a suitable array of add-ons" caveat. The proprietary
> alternative had all of that rolled into one package (abeit
> it glopped into one massive and arcane namespace), whereas
> there was no "Python Data Language" or whatever that
> would include all that in one named package that everyone
> could recognize (I suppose SciPy is trying to achieve that).

I believe the Enthought distribution of Python (for Windows, with a Mac
version planned) is trying to move exactly in that direction, by
packaging up everything and a half (while of course leaving a reasonable
assignment of namespaces from the pieces it's packaging!-). However,
maintaining such a distro, and making it available for a wider variety
of platforms, are heavy, continuing tasks -- unless either firms, such
as Enthought, or volunteers, commit to such tasks, they won't "just
happen".


Alex