[AstroPy] Q re. function minimization

[Ian Crossfield]

What functions or wrappers do people use for minimizing a function in 
multidimensional parameter space?  I have some experience with the 
scipy.optimize subfunctions but I've never been entirely happy with 
them; there also appear to be options in sage and a Python MPFIT.  What 
I'd like is a method that lets one minimize a function but also allows 
things like passed keyword arguments (unsupported in scipy.optimize) and 
above all a way to minimize while holding specified parameters fixed -- 
so that one can minimize over all parameters, and then repeat with some 
parameters held constant without having to write an entirely new 
function for each peculiar set of parameters.

Is anything that offers these features this out there?  How do people 
deal with this?

Thanks,

-- 
Ian Crossfield
UCLA Astronomy
KH 3-145J
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ianc/