"pydata" entries

Here are a few observations inspired by conversations I had during the just concluded PyData conference¹.

The Python data community is well-organized:
Besides conferences (PyData, SciPy, EuroSciPy), there is a new non-profit (NumFOCUS) dedicated to supporting scientific computing and data analytics projects. The list of supported projects are currently Python-based, but in principle NumFOCUS is an entity that can be used to support related efforts from other communities.

It’s getting easier to use the Python data stack:
There are tools that facilitate the dissemination and sharing of code and programming environments. IPython² notebooks allow Python code and markup in the same document. Notebooks are used to record and share complex workflows and are used heavily for (conference) tutorials. As the data stack grows, one of the major pain points is getting all the packages to work properly together (version compatibility is a common issue). In particular setting up environments were all the pieces work together can be a pain. There are now a few solutions that address this issue: Anaconda and cloud-based Wakari from Continuum Analytics, and cloud computing platform PiCloud.

There are many more visualization tools to choose from:
The 2D plotting tool matplotlib is the first tool enthusiasts turn to, but as I learned at the conference, there are a number of other options available. Continuum Analytics recently introduced companion packages Bokeh and Bokeh.js that simplify the creation of static and interactive visualizations using Python. In particular Bokeh is the equivalent of ggplot (it even has an interface that mimics ggplot). With Nodebox, programmers use Python code to create sketches and interactive visualizations that are similar to those produced by Processing. Read more…