Recently the Psychology techs have become Python fanatics!
We have all come from different technology backgrounds, I specialised in Adobe Flex, and Java, and the other guys add PHP, C ++ , C# and various other languages into our technology arsenal. The only problem is that we don’t have a common language, so it is difficult for us to work together and support one another’s code.
We arrived at Python indirectly though investigating an Open Source project called PsychoPy which is used for creating and running visual psychology experiments. In order to use this tool effectively we needed to know a bit about Python, and many tutorials and hours of book reading later ……..:
I love the simplicity of the language, and the way that when you want to do something quick and dirty, you just write a quick script, then if you want to do something more robust you have all the oop features you expect from the more formal languages like Java.
It also seems that lots of other people love Pyton too, and luckily for us they have already solved most of the worlds problems through Python! Furthermore they have released open source libraries that allows us to use their solutions with just a quick terminal command to install the lib and then a couple of lines of code….!
Want to do something that would only be possible in Matlab? Simpy import SciPy/NumPy and your away…….
Want to generate a QR code for your door sign? Import pyqrcode!
Want to read an RFID tag from a KentOne card using a cheapo off the shelf reader? Import smartcard!
Want to ask your network printer if it has enough ink? Import snmp!
Want to fly? Import antigravity – oh wait that doesn’t work yet, but I am sure someone is working on it!
So now a few months later we are all badge wearing Pythonistas, we finally have a shared language, and are about to start our first major project using Python, which I hope to talk about in future posts!