> Not quite a 'development environment', but a long way
towards one.
I always thought that the focus of matplotlib towards matlab-like
interactivity is fundamentally flawed. Matlab-like interactivity is damn
good when it is needed, but for that purpose in the free world there are
already the good Octave, Gnuplot and Scilab.
The big strength of matplotlib is that it is Python -that is, it is
built on top of a general purpose language that is both very powerful
and a breeze to code with.
I would like to see matplotlib being pushed as a scientific plotting
development library and environment, with pylab being a nice add-on for
people accustomed with python and wanting a python-friendly interactive
plot. Today matplotlib is marketed viceversa, and in my opinion this
confuses newcomers (that see a programming language being used as an
interactive command line environment) and doesn't help who wants to use
matplotlib as what it is -a python library- with full power (I was
*extremly* confused when I started to dig matplotlib to build a wx
application and *everything* I found starting with was a reference to
pylab...)
So, coming back to Giorgio question, I'd like to advice him to teach
matplotlib+scipy to his students as a programming environment first,
letting them learn Python, and *after* showing them that there is a
pythonic interactive environment.
m.
--
Massimo Sandal
University of Bologna
Department of Biochemistry "G.Moruzzi"
snail mail:
Via Irnerio 48, 40126 Bologna, Italy
email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
tel: +39-051-2094388
fax: +39-051-2094387
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