[Tutor] creating interactive program with python

[Kent Johnson]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Andre Walker-Loud <walksloud at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am thinking of creating a data analysis suite with python, and I want it
> to be interactive - ie the program asks the user (me) for input, like which
> data file to use, how many parameters to minimize, etc.  There are a few
> features I want it to have, like graphing, both the initial data as well as
> results of my analysis, etc.  If you are familiar with it, Matlab is close
> to what I would like, a sort of all in one tool - but that is expensive
> commercial software.

You might be interested in Sage:
http://www.sagemath.org/index.html

> 4) does anyone have strong recommendations for or against using matplotlib?
>  Is it low maintenance for producing graphs, or does it take lots of user
> interaction?  All the example pictures I see are very pretty, but it is not
> clear how much effort is needed to generate them - or is it just a "well
> know to those who know it well" thing?

I have had good success with matlab. It doesn't take a lot of commands
to create a graph. The documentation is extensive but a bit opaque -
it can be hard to find out how to do something. The examples in the
matplotlib gallery all have source code so you can judge for yourself
how hard it is;
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/gallery.html

Kent