4 ms·

Honestly I've never understood Python for data analysis. R and Matlab have way better environments. R Studio is quite possibly the best environment I've ever

Honestly I've never understood Python for data analysis. R and Matlab have way better environments. R Studio is quite possibly the best environment I've ever used, in any language. Even creating C++ modules with Rcpp is easy. Julia is also getting there with a lot of natural advantages over R, Matlab or Python. I just don't get why anyone uses Python in this domain.

smitty1e 5y ago
Python proper is terrible for analyzing data at scale. It's the numpy, scipy, jupyter tools, as well as Anaconda, that make the sale. Too, it's not just the analysis, but the extract/transform/load (ETL) beforehand. Python's general purpose wealth of tools had me transforming the FCC antenna coverage .zip[1] to shapefile and parking it in a spatialite file for QGIS in a relative jiffy. Doubtless I could do all that in Julia or R, but I get to hone my python-fu at the office doing cloud stuff by day--another argument in favor of the general-purpose tool. [1] ftp://ftp.fcc.gov/pub/Bureaus/MB/Databases/fm_service_contour_data/FM_service_contour_current.zip
- taeric 5y ago
  I argue that what makes the sale, is that that is what so many in the field are using. Not much inherent to the technologies, but you are taking on a daunting task if you want to compete with pytorch, instead of using it.
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    Network effects: we got 'em.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    But we can assume people got on python/numpy stack because it brought some value compared to R. I'm not a big fan of numpy but I find it a bit shallow to think it's mostly follower effect at play. It might be though.. but that would be sad. Maybe Julia will bring balance back in the universe.
    - taeric 5y ago
      Well, R is a rather awkward programming environment. And many folks learned on Mathematica and Matlab. What python brought to the table, was that it was freely installed on most machines.
harha 5y ago
Not having access to a good R environment at work is one big reason. At the company I work at there’s a pypi mirror with quite recent packages and it works out of the box - for R there’s only an ancient version and some hacks to get it to work with juptyer notebooks.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  ?? Can't use RStudio?
auxym 5y ago
Matlab is awful at being a general-purpose language, anything that isn't wrangling matrices. Strings, paths, networking, etc are all really painful compared to Python or Julia.
brnt 5y ago
Matlab was what came before Python. I do not ever want to go back. Sure, the Python ecosystem has its issues and Matlab has an IDE that is refined, but at least Python does have that ecosystem, all Matlab has is a shiny proprietary cage and littlr in the way of a cose sharing culture. Python being a proper language lets you break into other things, hookup completely unrelated code (and languages). All that's a giant pain in Matlab.

smitty1e 5y ago

Python proper is terrible for analyzing data at scale. It's the numpy, scipy, jupyter tools, as well as Anaconda, that make the sale. Too, it's not just the analysis, but the extract/transform/load (ETL) beforehand. Python's general purpose wealth of tools had me transforming the FCC antenna coverage .zip[1] to shapefile and parking it in a spatialite file for QGIS in a relative jiffy. Doubtless I could do all that in Julia or R, but I get to hone my python-fu at the office doing cloud stuff by day--another argument in favor of the general-purpose tool. [1] ftp://ftp.fcc.gov/pub/Bureaus/MB/Databases/fm_service_contour_data/FM_service_contour_current.zip

taeric 5y ago
I argue that what makes the sale, is that that is what so many in the field are using. Not much inherent to the technologies, but you are taking on a daunting task if you want to compete with pytorch, instead of using it.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Network effects: we got 'em.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  But we can assume people got on python/numpy stack because it brought some value compared to R. I'm not a big fan of numpy but I find it a bit shallow to think it's mostly follower effect at play. It might be though.. but that would be sad. Maybe Julia will bring balance back in the universe.
  - taeric 5y ago
    Well, R is a rather awkward programming environment. And many folks learned on Mathematica and Matlab. What python brought to the table, was that it was freely installed on most machines.

harha 5y ago

Not having access to a good R environment at work is one big reason. At the company I work at there’s a pypi mirror with quite recent packages and it works out of the box - for R there’s only an ancient version and some hacks to get it to work with juptyer notebooks.

Mikeb85 5y ago
?? Can't use RStudio?

auxym 5y ago

Matlab is awful at being a general-purpose language, anything that isn't wrangling matrices. Strings, paths, networking, etc are all really painful compared to Python or Julia.

brnt 5y ago

Matlab was what came before Python. I do not ever want to go back. Sure, the Python ecosystem has its issues and Matlab has an IDE that is refined, but at least Python does have that ecosystem, all Matlab has is a shiny proprietary cage and littlr in the way of a cose sharing culture. Python being a proper language lets you break into other things, hookup completely unrelated code (and languages). All that's a giant pain in Matlab.