Actually, I have experience with both SciPy/Numpy and Matlab and I must say, I vastly prefer Python. I want to interoperate with C code without disgust. I actu

Actually, I have experience with both SciPy/Numpy and Matlab and I must say, I vastly prefer Python. I want to interoperate with C code without disgust. I actually want to write my computation kernel in C, inline with my general high-level code. Numpy does that and I LOVE it for that. I want to be able to use libraries that are not provided by Mathworks. Serious GUI programming using PyQt, for example. Or, say, a decent XML parser. Or maybe some JASON importing. I want to be able to run my scientific programs without having to wait for a huge Matlab installation to start up and I want to be able to use my terminal properly. I want to not have to run X11 on OSX for christ sake. (Though apparently, this has been alleviated to some extent in the latest version. Anyone know first hand?) Oh, and I don't want to fork over 3k bucks just to write some simple signal processing stuff. (And I don't want to pay upgrade fees every year.) But then, I don't have an infinite budget, I am mostly interested in signal processing for audio signals and I certainly have more of a programming background than a science background (though my formal education would have me believe otherwise). Also, I am not much interested in Simulink and my latest version of Matlab is of 2007 vintage.