When I started doing optical observing in my postdoc, I was unpleasantly surprised at how difficult it was to learn to reduce the data. Most optical astronomers use a venerable package called IRAF, which may charitably be called “user antagonistic.” There is a Python wrapper, PyRAF, which mutes some of the annoyances but is no […]
The IPython Notebook combines code, documentation, and computational results in one package that’s easy to share. It’s proving a great way to teach, as notebooks are easy for the instructor to write and for students to modify. Notebooks also provide seamless integration with other programming environments through extensions providing “magic functions“: short code prefixes beginning […]
A recent major proposal deadline gave me a chance to brush up on my LaTeX skills. As a rule, it’s better to make your proposal more concise than to play formatting tricks to squeeze more text in. For this proposal, though, I needed the big guns–for some sections the instructions alone were a significant fraction […]
Python is often the language of choice for today’s cutting-edge astronomical software. Scientists wishing to take advantage of this powerful and growing ecosystem face the hurdle of learning a new programming language. Thankfully, with the rapid growth of scientific Python, a number of excellent comprehensive tutorials have been developed, many particularly for astronomers: A CfA […]
As a scientist, most of my work consists of text files: source code, data, and papers. Keeping track of changes to these files with version control helps me avoid losing work, track down bugs, reuse code, and keep records of my research. Rather than renaming files code.py.oldversion, code.py.aug01, code.py.brokendontuse, version control gives me a single, […]
The training and career outcomes of astronomy students make Python the current best-choice language for new development and analysis scripting. Two realities about academic astronomy allow us to evaluate the success of language choices, and Python is a clear winner. Astronomers do not receive any formal training in programming, computer science, or “software carpentry.” While […]