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I do all of my scientific computing in python these days. However, I think it's interesting to compare popularity using stackoverflow (which isn't a great metr

by jofer 13y ago

I do all of my scientific computing in python these days. However, I think it's interesting to compare popularity using stackoverflow (which isn't a great metric, as most scientists aren't aware that it exists): Semi-useless Stackoverflow Popularity Metric -------------------------------------------- Searching for questions tagged "[r]": * 45,119 questions Searching for questions tagged "[matlab] or [simulink]": * 27,044 questions Searching for questions tagged "[numpy] or [scipy] or [pandas] or [matplotlib]": * 18,745 questions Searching for questions tagged "[julia-lang]": * 95 questions Searching for questions tagged "[python]": * 255,603 Sure, python isn't as widely used for scientific computing as R or matlab (as evidenced by the third item above), but there's a lot to be said for using a very widely-used language for scientific computing. This is doubly true once you branch out from the "core" scientific code. Building a deployable desktop application is a lot easier in python than in matlab (Done it, partly through java. Don't want to again.) or R (Never tried. Might be easier than I think.).

collyw 13y ago
I saw a post on Perl loosing ground to Python based on Stack Overflow posts. Then I remembered, Perl Monks is far better than Stack Overflow for Perl. I would far rather see the discussions that are encouraged there, than the "closed as not constructive" crap on Stack Overflow. (Though to be fair I do see Python getting used more and more, and hear less of Perl).
- jofer 13y ago
  Very true. Similarly, there probably are a lot more matlab questions on MatlabCentral than on SO. However, stackoverflow is at least easily searchable and widely used. It's certainly not a purely random sample, though. (On a side note, I do feel like the excessive closing of questions on SO has gotten a bit better recently. That's just my opinion, though.)
chillingeffect 13y ago
Matlab has its own community. There have been 25,000 answers in the last 30 days. [1]. It has 100,000 users. [2] That stackoverflow metric is not great. It is semi-useless. [1] http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/activities http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/activities [2] http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/about/answers/ http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/about/answers/
- jofer 13y ago
  And thus the semi-useless title :) I'm quite aware of MatlabCentral, and it's a _very_ active community. Similarly, there are other forums for scipy, etc (mostly mailing lists). Traditionally, this is where the majority of questions were answered in the scientific python community, though lately stackoverflow has gained popularity. I wasn't claiming it was a complete sample. I used it as an unbiased random sample, but it's obviously not completely unbiased, either. I do think it's fair to say that usage python as a whole (of which the scientific python community is a very small part) is larger than matlab usage as a whole. That alone is not a good reason to choose a tool, but it does have some advantages. That's the point I was trying to get at.

by jofer 13y ago

collyw 13y ago

I saw a post on Perl loosing ground to Python based on Stack Overflow posts. Then I remembered, Perl Monks is far better than Stack Overflow for Perl. I would far rather see the discussions that are encouraged there, than the "closed as not constructive" crap on Stack Overflow. (Though to be fair I do see Python getting used more and more, and hear less of Perl).

jofer 13y ago
Very true. Similarly, there probably are a lot more matlab questions on MatlabCentral than on SO. However, stackoverflow is at least easily searchable and widely used. It's certainly not a purely random sample, though. (On a side note, I do feel like the excessive closing of questions on SO has gotten a bit better recently. That's just my opinion, though.)

chillingeffect 13y ago

Matlab has its own community. There have been 25,000 answers in the last 30 days. [1]. It has 100,000 users. [2] That stackoverflow metric is not great. It is semi-useless. [1] http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/activities http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/activities [2] http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/about/answers/ http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/about/answers/

jofer 13y ago
And thus the semi-useless title :) I'm quite aware of MatlabCentral, and it's a _very_ active community. Similarly, there are other forums for scipy, etc (mostly mailing lists). Traditionally, this is where the majority of questions were answered in the scientific python community, though lately stackoverflow has gained popularity. I wasn't claiming it was a complete sample. I used it as an unbiased random sample, but it's obviously not completely unbiased, either. I do think it's fair to say that usage python as a whole (of which the scientific python community is a very small part) is larger than matlab usage as a whole. That alone is not a good reason to choose a tool, but it does have some advantages. That's the point I was trying to get at.