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I wonder how large the proportion of social scientists is who actually know that Python is a programming language. (I am a social scientist myself). In my own

I wonder how large the proportion of social scientists is who actually know that Python is a programming language. (I am a social scientist myself). In my own experience, it is already pretty hard to teach them R.

limist 17y ago
Many of the students and academics from the older engineering fields (e.g. mechanical, chemical) don't know of python either. When I tell them (python + numpy + scipy + matplotlib) is as potent as MatLAB for most situations, and far more flexible and generalizable later, most don't believe me. They get started faster with MatLAB, then struggle later with its constraints, and end up creating overly-specialized, one-off tools that few others can use. Ideally, science/engineering schooling (college and up) should not allow anyone to graduate without knowledge of at least one general purpose programming language. But in the meanwhile, those who can program while working in another field - whether sociology or environmental engineering - have an enormous advantage.
- deleted 17y ago
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- physcab 17y ago
  I know exactly what you are talking about. When I first started my coursework in Machine Learning, I was given the freedom to use any programming language. But I simply defaulted to MatLAB because the rest of the CS department used it. I would have loved to do all my work in Python--and infact I tried to with NumPy and SciPy-- but it was just too hard to resist the comfortable environment MatLAB creates. So now I'm stuck porting over all my old code, which to be quite honest, is a good exercise in itself.
- hartror 17y ago
  I wish I could mod your comment up more. Programming is becoming an essential tool for scientists and engineers and it isn't taught it enough. Interestingly my mother was taught Pascal back in the day when she went back to Uni to study Environmental Science as an undergrad, looking back on it I am most impressed.

limist 17y ago

Many of the students and academics from the older engineering fields (e.g. mechanical, chemical) don't know of python either. When I tell them (python + numpy + scipy + matplotlib) is as potent as MatLAB for most situations, and far more flexible and generalizable later, most don't believe me. They get started faster with MatLAB, then struggle later with its constraints, and end up creating overly-specialized, one-off tools that few others can use. Ideally, science/engineering schooling (college and up) should not allow anyone to graduate without knowledge of at least one general purpose programming language. But in the meanwhile, those who can program while working in another field - whether sociology or environmental engineering - have an enormous advantage.

deleted 17y ago
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physcab 17y ago
I know exactly what you are talking about. When I first started my coursework in Machine Learning, I was given the freedom to use any programming language. But I simply defaulted to MatLAB because the rest of the CS department used it. I would have loved to do all my work in Python--and infact I tried to with NumPy and SciPy-- but it was just too hard to resist the comfortable environment MatLAB creates. So now I'm stuck porting over all my old code, which to be quite honest, is a good exercise in itself.
hartror 17y ago
I wish I could mod your comment up more. Programming is becoming an essential tool for scientists and engineers and it isn't taught it enough. Interestingly my mother was taught Pascal back in the day when she went back to Uni to study Environmental Science as an undergrad, looking back on it I am most impressed.