A tutorial that illustrates how Python can be used to analyze and visualize astronomical data (much like one can do in IDL) has been written and now is available at: http://www.scipy.org/wikis/topical_software/Tutorial While much of the focus is on astronomical data, most of it probably could serve as a general tutorial as well if sections on more advanced pyfits usage are skipped (only a few pages). There are appendices that contrast Python/numarray with IDL, I'd be happy to include the equivalent for Matlab if anyone who is familiar with both would like to write such appendices. Suggestions for improvements are welcome. Perry