Re:R vs Python for simple interactive data analysis
by wesm on Sunday August 28, 2011 @02:06PM
(#2934525)
I've built the equivalent to most of the plyr and reshape/reshape2 packages inside pandas (http://pandas.sourceforge.net, note I am in the midst of overhauling the documentation for the upcoming release). I plan to write a decent amount of side-by-side code comparisons, should definitely be useful for folks with R experience wishing to use Python for data analysis / statistics. Feedback from savvier R users than myself on pandas would also be extremely helpful.
Building a plotting library with the ease, sophistication, and beauty of ggplot2 in Python would be a big deal. A number of people I know are interested in venturing down that path (ggpy, anyone?).
Re:R vs Python for simple interactive data analysis
by wildanimal on Monday August 29, 2011 @06:44AM
(#2936690)
That sounds great -- I only recently learned of pandas (I normally don't use much of NumPy/SciPy), but I will keep an eye out on this.
Re:R vs Python for simple interactive data analysis
by phren0logy on Sunday August 28, 2011 @07:36PM
(#2935294)
Thanks for your work on pandas, I'm looking forward to being able to stick with one language for most of my data analysis tool chain.
R does have surprising capability for shell scripting and text processing, albeit slower than Python. I also use Python for the rapid text-processing necessary (possibly populating an SQL database) for R to eventually use.
I've been keeping an eye on SciPy, but there still seems to be a lot of "the source code is the documentation", whereas in R the documentation is usually superb and well-structured. And Matplotlib, while beautiful, seems to be more verbose than Matlab or R when it comes to customizing details of the graphics (e.g., axes, etc.). That's just my impression, but I wouldn't mind being shown otherwise.