> I was once tutoring a Master’s candidate at the University of Virginia how to use Python. She was interested in learning Python to interface with the OpenCV A

> I was once tutoring a Master’s candidate at the University of Virginia how to use Python. She was interested in learning Python to interface with the OpenCV API via the cv2 module. I had recommended her many educational resources from complete beginner texts to advanced OpenCV texts. > After a week of self-teaching, she had not made much progress in learning Python, mainly because she was trying to debug a specific script she found online. The script would read images via OpenCV’s cv2, then use matplotlib to display the images. The script used a strange matplotlib function I had never seen before for displaying the images. So, when she came to me with the error, I had no idea how to fix it. But… I did know how to accomplish the same thing with purely cv2. > All the while, she had learned nothing about Python itself, because she was busy trying to debug a matplotlib function. Obviously, her time would have been much better spent reading the first few chapters of an introductory Python book. I wouldn’t say that this student was unmotivated, rather that she was working a little too hard to fix an archaic and unnecessary matplotlib function. TL;DR: Instead of me learning enough about this one matplotlib function to help her, she should learn enough Python to write her own graphing library to use with OpenCV. I'm surprised he was onboard with her using OpenCV. This is also probably the worst advice I've ever seen offered on Hacker News. Good lord.