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Re:Why Python rocks for research by wgrover on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @12:49PM (#1865415)
I've never had any problems putting a research-grade python setup on OSX - just use the .dmg installer files files available for python (2.6.X for compatibility), numpy, scipy, and matplotlib. But I agree that the Enthought Python Distro is also a good alternative (if a little bloated for my needs), and it's also free for academics.
Re:Why Python rocks for research by wildanimal on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @10:16PM (#1867336)
When I tried to use easy_install with the EPD it tried to take me to their repository, for which we don't have appropriate permissions? So I sucked it up and installed some from .dmg's and others from source (matplotlib was difficult). And I found out just because it's Python doesn't mean it's portable - for instance NumPy/SciPy is hardly ever installed on other machines (it's not trivial, as is written here many times), and I find that administrators won't update their Python installation so I've had to re-write bits of my code to accommodate Python 2.3-2.4 at times! But all said, it's a nice tool and hopefully these installation/ version issues will work itself out.
Re:Why Python rocks for research by osdf on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @03:43PM (#1866183)
For a basic setup on OS X, I found scipy superpack to be an excellent choice: http://stronginference.com/scipy-superpack/
Re:Why Python rocks for research by gkelly on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @04:17PM (#1866315)
I've found macports provides a ton of python libraries, like numpy, scipy, and matplotlib, all easily installed from the command line.