Elegant SciPy: The Art of Scientific Python

Elegant SciPy is intended to inspire you to take your Python to the next level. You will learn SciPy by example, from the very best code.

Before starting, you should at least have seen Python, and know about variables, functions, loops, and maybe a bit of NumPy. You might have even honed your Python skills with advanced material, such as Fluent Python. If this doesn’t describe you, you should start with some beginner Python tutorials, such as Software Carpentry, before continuing with this book.

But perhaps you don’t know whether the 'SciPy stack' is a library or a menu item from the International House of Pancakes, and you aren’t sure about best practices. Perhaps you are a scientist who has read some Python tutorials online, and have downloaded some analysis scripts from another lab or a previous member of your own lab, and have fiddled with them. And you might think that you are more or less alone when you learn to code SciPy. You are not.

As we progress, we will teach you how to use the internet as your reference. And we will point you to the mailing lists, repositories, and conferences where you will meet like-minded scientists who are a little further in their journey than you.

This is a book that you will read once, but may return to for inspiration (and maybe to admire some elegant code snippets!).