Gaël Varoquaux - Scientist meets web dev: how Python became the language of data
Channel: EuroPython Conference
Date: 2016-08-07

Gaël Varoquaux - Scientist meets web dev: how Python became the language of data
[EuroPython 2016]
[22 July 2016]
[Bilbao, Euskadi, Spain]
(https://ep2016.europython.eu//conference/talks/keynote-science-web-dev)

Data science is a hot topic and  Python has emerged as an ideal language for it.
Its strength for data analysis come from the cultural mix between the
scientific Python community, and more conventional software usage,
such as web development or system administration. I'll show how and
why Python is a easy and powerful tool for data science.

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Python started as a scripting language, but now it is the new trend
everywhere and in particular for data science, the latest rage of
computing. It didn't get there by chance: tools and concepts built by
nerdy scientists and geek sysadmins provide foundations for what is
said to be the sexiest job: data scientist.

In my talk I'll give a personal perspective, historical and technical,
on the progress of the scientific Python ecosystem, from numerical
physics to data mining. What made Python suitable for science; How
could scipy grow to challenge commercial giants such as Matlab; Why
the cultural gap between scientific Python and the broader Python
community turned out to be a gold mine; How scikit-learn was born,
what technical decisions enabled it to grow; And last but not least,
how we are addressing a wider and wider public, lowering the bar and
empowering people.

The talk will discuss low-level technical aspects, such as how the
Python world makes it easy to move large chunks of number across code.
It will touch upon current exciting developments in scikit-learn and
joblib. But it will also talk about softer topics, such as project
dynamics or documentation, as software's success is determined by
people.