[UFO Chicago] In praise of matplotlib

[Brian Sobolak]

I had been looking for a graphing program that didn't suck for awhile, one 
that didn't require too much effort to get started with.

I (heart) matplotlib.
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

I haven't don't anything terribly complicated yet, but it allowed me a 
decent way to graph a series I had been working with with only a small 
amount of time spent coding (1-2 hours?)  Given the  # of files and 
datapoints, Excel couldn't have gotten the job done.  I was happy.

Also, I was pleased with Python x,y, a complete development kit for people 
whose primary job relates to the sciences and do programming on the side. 
It uses Eclipse, which has its own problems, but it was useful enough for 
me.  It worked easily from the first time I tried to use it, and I didn't 
have to spend much time futzing to get it to do what I wanted.  I'll 
probably switch thus switch from emacs to Python x,y as my Python IDE, 
something I didn't have before.

http://www.pythonxy.com/

brian