Jake VanderPlas is an astronomer and open-source leader, serving as Director of Open Software at the University of Washington’s eScience Institute. He writes and builds widely used Python tools for data science, machine learning, and scientific computing.
66 articles from this blog
Introducing JSAnimation, a JavaScript package for embedding Matplotlib animations in IPython notebooks without external video codecs.
A tutorial on embedding matplotlib animations directly into IPython notebooks using HTML5 video encoding and custom display functions.
A developer details the technical process and reasoning behind migrating their static blog from Ruby-based Octopress to Python-based Pelican.
A developer details a new, enhanced Ball Tree and KD-Tree implementation for scikit-learn, comparing its performance and features to existing solutions.
A deep dive into writing extremely concise Python code, using the creation of a Sudoku solver as an example to explore code golf techniques.
A PyCon/PyData attendee discusses the state of Python data visualization, comparing Matplotlib's strengths and limitations with newer tools like NodeBox OpenGL.
A tutorial on creating a 3D animation of the chaotic Lorenz system using Python, matplotlib, and SciPy.
A guide to setting up a Python development environment on a Mac, covering terminal basics, MacPorts, and Xcode installation.
A guide on using Python and matplotlib to extract and animate Super Mario Bros. graphics directly from the game's ROM data.
A 2016 article analyzing the slow adoption of Python 3 in the scientific community, now outdated with a recommendation to just use Python 3.
Explores sparse Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) implementations in Python, comparing libraries like ARPACK, LAPACK, and PROPACK for computational efficiency.
A tutorial on implementing the classic Minesweeper game using Python's Matplotlib library, focusing on interactive event callbacks.
An introduction to Python metaclasses, explaining how classes themselves are objects and how the 'type' metaclass works.
A developer built a 3D interactive Rubik's Cube simulator in Python using matplotlib, explaining the rendering and rotation logic.
A tutorial on creating an interactive 3D viewer in Matplotlib using quaternions for rotation, addressing the library's 3D visualization limitations.
Explores the new sparse graph module in SciPy 0.11, demonstrating its algorithms through a classic word ladder problem in Python.
A guide to creating hand-drawn, XKCD-style plots in Matplotlib using custom code before the feature was officially added.
A technical guide on integrating IPython notebooks into the Octopress blogging platform, including CSS conflict resolution.
A tutorial on creating an animated optical illusion using Python's Matplotlib library, including code and explanations.
Argues that Python's dominance in scientific computing will endure due to its massive community on GitHub and the complementary role of languages like Julia.
