The PyData Ecosystem

Question

I have read about PyData in a few places (e.g. here), but I am still confused about this term really means.

Is PyData an official entity? (e.g. is there a foundation that owns/supports PyData.org?). Is it just a conference? Or is it mostly a term used loosely to refer to a list of Python packages?

Also what packages are considered the core part of the PyData ecosystem? Is it just any package that can be used to work with data? (that would be quite generic). Some packages that I have found are typically associated with PyData are:

• Numpy
• Scipy
• Pandas
• Scikit-Learn
• NLTK
• PyMC
• Numba
• Blaze

Is this list consistent with the group of packages typically associated with PyData ? Or are there any important omissions?

Finally, to what extent does the PyData ecosystem support Python 3.x? Is it safe to assume that most of the PyData ecosystem is compatible with Python 3.x? If not, what packages do not support it yet?

Answer 1

PyData is a series of local meetups and conferences, organized with help from NumFOCUS, a non-profit group that supports open source scientific software.There are more than 100 locally organized PyData meetup groups around the world. Throughout the year, there are also larger PyData conferences in Silicon Valley, Boston, NYC, London, and other locations. Many of the conference organizers are located in Austin, TX since NumFOCUS was original started out of Anaconda, Inc, a company co-founded by Travis Oliphant and Peter Wang. Leah Silen is the main organizer for all the conferences, yet they also recruit local volunteer organizers to help with much of the logistics per event and myself volunteering time to work on their website.

PyData also refers to the community that is focused on primarily using Python for data analysis (more business focused than SciPy, which is organized by Enthought and leans more towards academic applications). There is much overlap between the two communities, however you'll find more financial related topics at PyData.

PyData also refers to the packages you listed. In addition many of the individuals in the community use iPython notebooks to demonstrate usage of the listed packages. Anaconda, Inc has the Anaconda Distribution available for download, which is a all in one type of installation, which includes 100+ of the most popular Python packages for science, math, engineering, data analysis. Anaconda support Python 2.7 and 3.5+.