Getting Started : Pre- Requisite

Off course the first requirement is having Python on your machine. Good if you get pip installed on your machine. Additionally you may have virtualenv to create a separate work-space all together without messing your previous configuration.
For our purpose, we need numerical extension of Python which are used for linear algebra, data visualization and other Scientific and Numerical stuff. We need to install following packges for that.

•  SciPy : 
•  NumPy
•  Matplotlib

Additionally you may like to add, iPython for interactive data plotting with matplotlib

Installing them is a easy task. i used Ubuntu,

$ sudo pip install numpy 

$ sudo pip install scipy 

$ sudo pip install matplotlib 

$ sudo pip install ipython

Do check the order, SciPy depends on NumPy. Also Scipy didn't go that easy for me, and i faced trouble in installing by pip command so finally i took the source-code and built from it. Now check your installation. Open Terminal,

$ ipython --pylab 

it'll open iPython interactive shell with matplotlib ready option (i.e. you need not to import it)

]: import numpy as np
]: import scipy as sp
]: plot(np.arange(10))

This will plot a Line Like this in Picture.

One very important think to remember, all arrays and list and all sequences in Python are '0'-based unlike Octave where everything is 1-based.



Note: I'm not an expert in using these tools, so you can always help me with your experience.