Numpy, Scipy and Matplotlib aren't a 100% clone of Matlab, but they do provide much of similar matrix manipulation and data visualisation tools. Where they rea

Numpy, Scipy and Matplotlib aren't a 100% clone of Matlab, but they do provide much of similar matrix manipulation and data visualisation tools. Where they really shine though, is scientific code that needs to do a bit more than numerical computation. I've tried Matlab briefly, and it was hell. Things like parsing strange text files for the source data, scraping data from websites, pulling data in from a SQL database, or publishing the computation as a web service are all easy with Python. Spending a small bit of extra time on the core matrix code is okay to get the rest of the Python ecosystem and libraries (and even for loops that make sense).