It's hard to ignore the wealth of statistical packages available in R/CRAN. That said, I spend a lot of time in Python land and would never dissuade anyone ...CrossValidatedisaquestionandanswersiteforpeopleinterestedinstatistics,machinelearning,dataanalysis,datamining,anddatavisualization.Itonlytakesaminutetosignup.SignuptojointhiscommunityAnybodycanaskaquestionAnybodycananswerThebestanswersarevotedupandrisetothetopHomePublicQuestionsTagsUsersUnansweredTeamsStackOverflowforTeams–Collaborateandshareknowledgewithaprivategroup.CreateafreeTeamWhatisTeams?TeamsCreatefreeTeamTeamsQ&AforworkConnectandshareknowledgewithinasinglelocationthatisstructuredandeasytosearch.LearnmorePythonasastatisticsworkbenchAskQuestionAsked10years,11monthsagoActive7monthsagoViewed134ktimes375421$\begingroup$LotsofpeopleuseamaintoollikeExceloranotherspreadsheet,SPSS,Stata,orRfortheirstatisticsneeds.Theymightturntosomespecificpackageforveryspecialneeds,butalotofthingscanbedonewithasimplespreadsheetorageneralstatspackageorstatsprogrammingenvironment.I'vealwayslikedPythonasaprogramminglanguage,andforsimpleneeds,it'seasytowriteashortprogramthatcalculateswhatIneed.Matplotliballowsmetoplotit.Hasanyoneswitchedcompletelyfrom,sayR,toPython?R(oranyotherstatisticspackage)hasalotoffunctionalityspecifictostatistics,andithasdatastructuresthatallowyoutothinkaboutthestatisticsyouwanttoperformandlessabouttheinternalrepresentationofyourdata.Python(orsomeotherdynamiclanguage)hasthebenefitofallowingmetoprograminafamiliar,high-levellanguage,anditletsmeprogrammaticallyinteractwithreal-worldsystemsinwhichthedataresidesorfromwhichIcantakemeasurements.ButIhaven'tfoundanyPythonpackagethatwouldallowmetoexpressthingswith"statisticalterminology"–fromsimpledescriptivestatisticstomorecomplicatedmultivariatemethods.WhatcanyourecommendifIwantedtousePythonasa"statisticsworkbench"toreplaceR,SPSS,etc.?WhatwouldIgainandlose,basedonyourexperience?rspssstatapythonShareCiteImprovethisquestionFolloweditedJul4'13at17:03communitywiki3rev