Yes, the closed system is a big thing. Anything interesting I may create will have to be re-written in another language if I want to extend/share with others. W

Yes, the closed system is a big thing. Anything interesting I may create will have to be re-written in another language if I want to extend/share with others. While it's not reasonable to use something like c to test out (computer vision in this case) algorithms in practical classes, Python is both simple and open. The problem of having many possible combinations as mentioned by lliiffee doesn't seem like much of a big deal. Surely a faculty could just specify their recommended setup?