What would you like to see in a book about Matplotlib?

[Dotan Cohen]

2009/1/11 Sandro Tosi <matrixhasu at gmail.com>:
>> I would suggest at least a chapter on _acquiring_ the data that is to
>> be plotted using Python to scrape different sources _not_designed_ to
>> be scraped. Online webpages come to mind. An example on retrieving,
>> for instance, the prices of varying currencies, parsing the HTML
>> pages, extracting the data, and then plotting it would be a great
>> example for a real worlds usage that show matplotlib as a tool in a
>> toolchain, not a means to an end.
>
> Well, a whole chapter to this is a little too much, but such examples
> will be presented in the book: we're not going to teach how to program
> in Python, but how to use matplotlib, so the data retriving is a
> little out-of-scope (or at least border-line), so the code will be in
> the examples provided along with the book, but not deeply explained in
> the book text.
>

The problem with that approach is that you limit your audience to people who:
1) Are interested in matplotlab
-AND-
2) Are already familiar with Python

For every AND clause you remove you broaden the book's audience. You
do not need to rewrite the book on Python programming or programming
in general, but getting a C or even PHP programmer up to speed on the
basics of Python as related to matplotlib will make the book much more
accessible. At a minimum, it will add another valuable chapter to the
book that can be safely ignored by Python gurus. And you are making
the book that much more accessible.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

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