Wondering in the Python Forrest

[Terry Reedy]

On 7/30/2011 7:13 AM, ray wrote:
> I am new to Python and am learning for engineering and scientific
> use.  For some reason, which I don’t remember, I went to Scipy.org
> downloaded the module.  I am sure it had explained things but that was
> a couple weeks ago and it’s all a blur.  So now I am working in
> Pythonxy.  One of my activities is to work with data from Excel.  I
> found the cvs reader and started researching its use.  I found that
> structured data could be presented in Python using a module in
> wxPython.
>
> Where am I?  I do not know the relationships between the Pythons.  I
> feel that I am missing something.  I started with Python as it has so
> much functionality and a huge user group of very helpful individuals
> and sites.  Now that I have delved deeper, it seems I need different
> Pythons.
>
> I would like to understand how to use all this functionality,
> logistically.  If I have a series of tasks to perform, do I open a
> session in one, read in data from a source, manipulate it, write it
> out, open another Python type, read in the manipulated data, perform
> other actions, write it out, close that and then open another to
> display?  Is there a more coherent way to do this?
>
> I would appreciate any help in better understanding how to use all
> these tools.

'Python' is a language with multiple versions. Python2.x is the older 
series, but still in use Python3.x is the newer series of versions. 
Pythonx.y is a particular version.

CPython is the main *implementation* of Python. It comes with a standard 
library of modules that you can import. Other people provide other 
modules and packages of modules that you can import.

Numpy is a package for numerical computation with multi-dimensional 
arrays. Scipy is a package for scientific computation that uses numpy.

There are several packages for adding a graphical user interface to a 
program. WxPython is one of those. It is the Python wrapper for the 
wxwidgets library. It is not a 'python' in itself.

Terry