Why does the scientific community still use Python2...

Why does the scientific community still use Python2? I really want to use Python but having to deal with two different versions of Python is incredibly annoying. Vim can only load Python2 or Python3 with is annoying. Why the fuck does Python2 still exist.

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because changing from print to print() is too challenging.

how is this /g/?

It's that one bad thing about Python that it's split into two versions. My solution is to use the python version which is invoked by default when you type "python" in terminal. For now it's version 2 usually. /g/ is about Information Technology usually, they have daily programming threads and programming by itself is not a science (even though there is a scientific approach to programming).

What are the alternatives for scientific computing?

>Fortran
Ancient

>MATLAB
Proprietary software

>C
You have to re-invent the wheel to get it to a point where it's comfortable to type matrix notation, etc. Although, its speed is bar none.

GNU Octave

scheme

Awful. None of the bells and whistles that makes MATLAB worth using; may as well use python or R.

Origin scripting language if you're super autismal enough.

What are the bells and whistles? Even if there's no equivalent of some function from matlab in octave, there are many packages made by community that may have the missing functions.
I disagree that Octave is in some significant way worse than Matlab.

Because you`re talking about technology.

>SCIENTIFIC computing
I don't think /g/ knows shit about numpy

>using vim and not emacs
why are you even bothering to breathe?

matlab is becoming the standard in most fields

what's wrong with fortran? just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad.

You're right. But, because it's so old, not a lot of people use it anymore. Unfortunately, that can be a determining factor of which language to use, as you might need to collaborate.

I'd say matlab WAS the standard in most fields (and may still be), but Python is quickly gaining popularity (at least, I know it is in numerical computing).

visualization is a pain in the ass in python compared to matlab and visualization is the most important feature of a scientific computing language in most fields

Since they probably study CS, at some point they probably had to compute something useful in Python and thus probably used numpy too.
It's not a complicated to use module and it's useful, practical.

C-x brofist

It is very popular in engineering and among scientist doing numerical computations. Python however is just behind it in popularity.

Fortran is one of those languages that will always be relevant in engineering and science, because there's so much useful software already written in it. However, ANSI C has nicer syntax and is also very useful.

You can always use gnuplot or some other external tool to make visualization, it's not necessary to have it as a feature of the language itself. Results are important.

>Why does the scientific community still use Python2?
Because some popular programs, toolkits and IDE's use it.

For some reason developers of the programs, toolkits and IDE's don't think it's necessary to port them to Python 3 and the question is why? Python 2 and 3 aren't that much different, probably many of the changes could be made automatically.

engineering undergrad here. what language should i code in? MATLAB?

A lot of very good libraries still only have support for Python 2.7

Gonna quote from a book I have on python here:

>Python 3 is the future of Python, and everyone is moving toward it. Python 2.7 will
nonetheless be around for many years to come (some installations still use Python 2.4
from 2004); its retirement date has been set at 2020

>The shift to Python 3.3+ has caused enough headaches for library developers that people
have been slow to port their code (with good reason), and therefore people have been
slow to adopt Python 3. This is mainly due to the complexities of switching from a mix of string and Unicode datatypes in complicated applications to the Unicode and byte
implementation in Python 3.

>Typically, when you want reproducible results based on a set of trusted libraries, you
don’t want to be at the bleeding edge. High performance Python developers are likely
to be using and trusting Python 2.7 for years to come.

Fucked up my greentext but you get the point.

If some toolkit was writting at MIT in 1998 for this and that STEM field --- some now standard API reaching into a now established computational blackbox --- nobody is there to rewrite it and substitute it on the download platform

>Why the fuck does Python2 still exist.
The real question is why does python3 exist?

When was that book published?
"Python3 is nice, but all the libraries are still Python2" was the prevailing opinion about five years ago. Nowadays you're more likely to find libraries that are 3-only than 2-only.