[Matrix-SIG] advocacy

[Jonah Lee]

On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Joe Harrington wrote:

I'd be very happy to contribute. I've started working, on a small scale,
some plotting interfaces using Python. At this moment, despite the
existence of the SIG, activities are quite disorganized. If we could
muster enough core developers we may be able to get a product that we are
all proud of that does justice to Python.:-) The KDE and GNOME projects,
to me, are quite inspiring.

Regards,
Jonah 
PSA Member


> I too have been searching for a free data analysis environment.  I
> currently use the abominable IDL.  For the average scientist, IDL is
> still the best that's out there, and this makes me glum.  Python has
> the promise to be *much* more, but it's not there yet.  Mostly this is
> a problem with the add-ons, not the language itself.  When I tried
> doing a few projects with Numeric, here's what I ran into:
> 
> Plotting capability is primitive compared to IDL, better plotting
> 	might be available but is tedious/difficult to integrate, and
> 	there are licensing issues.
> The breadth of numerical routines is small, and most have very
> 	limited implementations.
> Data types I use (FITS) are poorly supported, if at all.
> To do anything, you need to do a lot of legwork pulling together
> 	disparate packages and integrating them into Python.
> Documentation is almost nonexistent -- basically you must use the
> 	force, read the source.
> Things are very disorganized; different packages offer overlapping
> 	routines that don't work together.
> 
> To a hacker interested in Python, much of the above is not a big deal.
> Just do the legwork, read the source code comments for documentation,
> write what you need.  To most scientists, this is unacceptable.
> They'd rather support a commercial organization they don't generally
> like (RSI) to make a poor language like IDL have a slick appearance, a
> broad, well-implemented set of numerical and plotting routines, and
> good docs.  It's the lesson of Windows vs. Mac: to most people the
> core system doesn't matter, the applications do.
> 
> A year and a half ago, Paul Barrett and I put in a proposal to NASA
> with a number of list members as Collaborators.  The proposal would
> have covered some programmers' and doc writers' salaries to make and
> distribute a coherent package, but it wasn't selected for funding.
> 
> Given these problems, I sadly put Python aside, though I've been
> lurking for the past year in hopes of seeing a change or catching an
> opportunity to do something.  Today's digest contained both your
> message and the announcement of some FITS routines (I wish Paul
> Barrett would release his class library!).  Perhaps this is a good
> time to step back and ask the community a few questions about where it
> wants Numerical Python to go.
> 
> It's great to have the flexibility of modules, but to be successful
> among non-hacker scientists there has to be a "full version" with all
> the packages built, a well-organized structure, good docs, plotting
> capability, and support for all popular data formats.  The folks at
> LLNL have the basics going, but progress at the current rate won't get
> NumPy to compete with IDL (or several others) any time soon.  This is
> not at all intended as a criticism of LLNL or the list's current level
> of activity.  Making a fleshed-out package will be a lot of work, and
> will require some real commitment and a lot of late hours from a lot
> of people.  It would mean real coordination, people volunteering time
> and being tasked with sometimes boring jobs, establishing a means to
> make overall design decisions and sticking with them, etc.  Are list
> members willing and interested in an organized development effort
> aimed at creating a competitor to IDL?
> 
> --jh--
> Joe Harrington
> Cornell University Space Sciences
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Matrix-SIG maillist  -  Matrix-SIG@python.org
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matrix-sig
> 

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