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This is the first half of a two-part blog post that is motivated-by and mostly "about" two software ecosystems I've been poking around at recently. The first (and subject of this post) is I'll roughly call "interactive scientific Python", which includes primarily SciPy/SymPy/NumPy, IPython, and Sage; the second (subject of next post) is a new interactive scientific language Julia, which has a lot of complicated and subtle relationships with the former. If you hate Python, skip this post because it is really just background for why I care about the fate of a few Python packages.
I've been trying to write something coherent and useful and not infinitely-long about these systems for over a month, and failing every time I get started writing because there's just too much history and too many angles to approach them from. So taking a cue from @flipzagging I will attempt to start "in the midst of things" and work my way out. More than the past few posts, this one is super long and full of dull backstory, so I will again cut for brevity.
( the midst of things )
I've been trying to write something coherent and useful and not infinitely-long about these systems for over a month, and failing every time I get started writing because there's just too much history and too many angles to approach them from. So taking a cue from @flipzagging I will attempt to start "in the midst of things" and work my way out. More than the past few posts, this one is super long and full of dull backstory, so I will again cut for brevity.
( the midst of things )