Python for scientific computing

The Python language is an excellent tool for scientific computing and rapidly growing in popularity. This page gathers some information and resources on this topic.

Resources

Py4Science meeting series at UC Berkeley
An open, informal series open to anyone interested in using, learning about or contributing to Python-based tools for scientific research.
Code review meetings
A topic that bridges research and computing concerns. The rationale and some guidelines on the why and how of having a discipline of group code reviews as part of our regular research workflow.
Why Python?
A short page you may find useful if you are wondering why you should consider the Python language as a research tool [ This needs work at the moment…]
A “Starter Kit”
If either I or someone else convinced you with a “why python?” discussion, and you are asking “OK, now what?”, this may be useful.
Warts
No tool is perfect, this is the summary of my annoyances.
Blog
I (occasionally) post items related to this topic.
Git resources
Not specific to Python, but rather a set of resources on how to use a good version control system as part of your daily workflow.

News and events

In reverse chronological order, links to meetings, discussions or other items of interest on this topic.

November 2009, Guido van Rossum at our Py4Science seminar
On November 4, we had a very interesting session with Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python language. See this page for details.
September 2009, PyDy
At our meeting series, Luke Peterson from UC Davis gave a very interesting talk on PyDy, a project under the SymPy umbrella to symbolically describe mechanical systems and derive their equations of motion. Many thanks to Jeff Teeters for his continued work of videotaping the lectures.
September 2009, decorators
Some notes about decorators for controlling execution from a September 2009 talk at the Berkeley Py4Science group.
April 2009, PyMVPA
We will be having a PyMVPA/NiPy meeting, where we will work on integration issues as well as having two lectures by the PyMVPA team.
March 2009, Expert Python Programming book review
I have recently received a copy of the book Expert Python Programming by Tarek Ziadé, you can read my full review here.
March 2009, SIAM CSE09
I co-organized another Python mini-symposium at a SIAM meeting, this time the Computational Science and Engineering one. I’ve posted a summary report on my blog, and this page has all the slides I have so far.
October 2008, 2-day hands-on workshop at UC Berkeley
I’m holding a 2-day workshop introducing Python for scientists. The workshop is now over, but most of the lectures were videotaped and can be found here.
September 2008, PEP 225 for extended binary operators in Python
Feedback from the numpy community on Python’s PEP 225 regarding the implementation of new arithmetic operators.
June 2008, Python and Sage at the annual SIAM meeting
I have posted the slides I have from the Python/Sage minisymposium at the 2008 SIAM annual meeting.