Who is using Python

“Sometimes the middle of the herd is a good place to be.”

(In response to the question “Why spend time migrating to Python?” at a Users Committee meeting)

That was in 2007 and in the interim Python has become firmly established as the primary scripting language in astronomy. The ease of interfacing C / C++ / FORTRAN means many organizations are using Python user front-ends with a combination of compiled code + Python on the back-end.

• Radio / Submm (NRAO, ESO, JAOJ, CSIRO): CASA
• IR: HIPE (Herschel Interactive Processing Environment)
• Optical: STSci (PyRAF, PyFITS)
• Optical: Gemini IRAF package - new development in Python
• Optical: ESO PyMidas
• X-ray: Chandra CIAO and Sherpa
• Gamma-ray: Fermi Science Analysis tools

Why join the herd?

Resources, resources, resources!

• Discussions and people answering questions
  • CfA pythonusers mailing list (over 100 subscribers)
  • astropython.org
  • astropy mailing list
  • stackoverflow
  • Conferences: SciPy and EuroSciPy
• Tutorials
  • SciPy Intro and Advanced tutorials [1]
  • SciPy astronomy tutorial (144 pages!)
  • Dive into Python
  • ... and many more ...
• Lists of resources
  • Comfort at 1 AU
  • Astropython.org resources
  • Astronomical Python
• Books:
  • Amazon “python science engineering”
  • Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional
  • Learning Python
  • ... and hundreds more ...

[1]	I could not untar the “tgz” (tar.gz) version but the “zip” archive was fine.

Other sciences

Bioinformatics (computational molecular biology)

As seen at biopython.org.

From the SciPy Topical Software wiki:

• Artificial intelligence & machine learning
• Bayesian Statistics
• Biology (including Neuroscience)
• Dynamical systems
• Economics and Econometrics
• Electromagnetics
• Electrical Engineering
• Geosciences
• Molecular modeling
• Signal processing
• Symbolic math, number theory, etc.