[SciPy-dev] FW: SciPy compared to IDL, matlab

[Vincent van Beveren]

Oops,

Sorry, posted this in the wrong list. I will repost it in scipy-users

Regards,
Vincent

________________________________
From: Vincent van Beveren
Sent: dinsdag 7 juli 2009 12:00
To: 'scipy-dev at scipy.org'
Subject: SciPy compared to IDL, matlab

Hello everyone,

I'm an engineer at Rijnhuizen, which is a research institute for plasma physics. We use Python to drive one of our main research projects, however, in the scientific circles in this institute Python (and SciPy) are largely unknown. Time to change this, I think :). However, since I am an engineer and not a scientist I my viewpoint on Python and SciPy are more of an engineering perspective, like its Open Source, Free, modern language, functional programming, etc... I'm not entirely sure these are compelling arguments for a scientist to start working with Python (or atleast not on it self). So I was wondering, if I was to promote Python in the scientific community here at Rijnhuizen. So I have a few questions:

-          In what aspects does SciPy excel, compared to say IDL or matlab?
-          In what ways allows it a scientist to be more effective?
-          How usable is SciPy for Plasma physics, molucular dynamics and nanolayer Surface and Interface Physics (the 3 main areas at Rijnhuizen)?
-          How stable is it compared to other packages. (bugs, computation)?

However, feel free to give any comments and insights!

Regards,
Vincent

Ing. V. van Beveren
Software Engineer, FOM Rijnhuizen
T: +31 (0) 30-6096769
E: V.vanBeveren at rijnhuizen.nl<mailto:V.vanBeveren at rijnhuizen.nl>

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