replacing Matlab with python

Question

i am a engineering student and i have to do a lot of numerical processing, plots, simulations etc. The tool that i use currently is Matlab. I use it in my university computers for most of my assignments. However, i want to know what are the free options available.

i have done some research and many have said that python is a worthy replacement for matlab in various scenarios. i want to know how to do all this with python. i am using a mac so how do i install the different python packages. what are those packages? is it really a viable alternative? what are the things i can and cannot do using this python setup?

Answer 1

On a Mac the easiest ways to get started are (in no particular order):

• Enthought Python Distribution which includes most scientific packages you are likely to need. Free for academic/non-commercial use.
• Macports - up to date with latest releases, so sudo port install py26-numpy py26-scipy py26-matplotlib py26-ipython should get you started.
• Scipy Superpack - script to install recent svn versions of all the important packages.

I've done exactly this (replace Matlab with Python) about 2 years ago and haven't looked back. The broadcasting in Python, more intuitive memory model and other Numpy advantages make numerical work a complete pleasure. Plus with f2py, cython it is incredibly easy to put inner loops in another language. This is a good place to start - other impressive pages to provide motiviation are PerformancePython and ParallelProgramming. Be sure to understand Pythons "variable is a reference to an object" semantics... after that adjustment everything is plain sailing. One of the coolest things that beats matlab is in 2 lines I run over 8 cores... p = Pool(8); res = p.map(analysis_function,list_of_data) - MATLAB parallels toolboxes are so expensive I've yet to see a University that actually has them.