Talk:An Introduction to Python For Undergraduate Engineers

Hi Matt, I'm logged in and able to comment Cpjobling (talk) 09:05, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

In your introduction, you mention other good books on Python: perhaps you should list a few? Cpjobling (talk) 09:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

In your file example isn't the syntax

f = open('filename','r') f.write("string")

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your comments. I will add a list of good books at the bottom in the references, and I ight mention them in a later section "Carrying on with Python.." or something similar. What do you think?

I think the syntax is correct. The 'w' is used to tell python to make the file available for writing, so I think it should be like this:

f = open("filename",'w') f.write("string")

I've just tried it and works fine. One thing I did notice though is that in Windows if you don't use the f.close command, nothing is saved. This is different in ubuntu where the text is added immediately - when I first wrote this I had done it in ubuntu. I've now added that to the wiki.

Please keep hunting for errors, it's hard to see your own mistake!

Thanks, Matt

It think it would be useful to include a section on useful modules for doing engineering in Python. The section would be composed of some short descriptions and a link to the module's website. At the very least, the section should cover: 1) Scipy and Numpy, MatlibPlot 2) Enthought Python distribution as an easy way of getting Scipy etc. Other scientific Python distributions: SAGE (sagemath.org), PythonXY (pythonxy.com) 3) a few of the units packages for Python (not necessarily all):   * Quantities: http://dale.chess.cornell.edu/chess-wiki/Quantities    * Magnitude: http://juanreyero.com/magnitude/    * An efficient scalar package in python: http://russp.us/scalar.htm          o Units can be switched off easily for speedy computing          o 2008    * unum: units in python http://home.scarlet.be/be052320/Unum.html          o http://sourceforge.net/projects/unum/          o 2005    * Caltech's pyre.units http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/projects/pyre/    * Scientific.Physics.PhysicalQuantity: http://dirac.cnrs-orleans.fr/plone/software/scientificpython/ some other things which the section might cover: 1) FiPy: for solving partial differential equations in Python http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/fipy/ 2) OpenOpt: for doing optimization and systems of equations solving and linking solvers up to a common interface with possibility of automatic differentiation http://openopt.org

Others may have other suggestions. I myself am not super experienced with Python, so I will not write this section right now, but I will come back and write it when I have a bit more experience with these packages if no one else does it. Jsalvati (talk) 18:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, it might be useful to relax the assumption that the reader does not have an prior programming experience. I think all engineering students get at least one programming class, and I imagine this has been true for some time. This would allow the book to focus on teaching engineers how to solve engineering problems in Python without having to reinvent the wheel. There are many good non-programmer introductions to python which this book could easily link to. Jsalvati (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned page
The following page is orphaned from this main page:
 * An Introduction to Python For Engineers/Installing Python

If it's no longer needed, please mark it with    -- Adrignola (talk) 01:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Nothing New
Hey guys, I just got finished breaking this book up into smaller pages for convenience, but did not review them or change them in any other way. It seems that some of them are either completely empty or severely lacking in information. They would benefit from some thorough fleshing out. --Osteveliam 04:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)