What went into developing the open-source Python tools data scientists use every day? This week on the show, we talk with Travis Oliphant about his work on SciPy, NumPy, Numba, and many other contributions to the Python scientific community. Travis discusses his initial involvement in the open-source community and how he discovered Python while working in biomedical imaging. He was trying to find ways to manage large sets of numerical data, which led to his initial contributions and collaborations in building scientific libraries. His appearance on the show coincides with the release of the Python documentary, in which he’s featured. We discuss the myriad organizations Travis founded, including Quansight, OpenTeams, and Anaconda. We dig into his underlying mission to continue fostering the growth of the open-source scientific computing community. This episode is sponsored by InfluxData. Course Spotlight: NumPy Techniques and Practical Examples In this video course, you’ll learn how to use NumPy by exploring several interesting examples. You’ll read data from a file into an array and analyze structured arrays to perform a reconciliation. You’ll also learn how to quickly chart an analysis and turn a custom function into a vectorized function. Topics: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:41 – Python documentary 00:07:44 – Getting involved in open source 00:12:04 – Numeric Python 00:15:36 – SciPy and the SciPy community 00:17:35 – Starting to think about entrepreneurship 00:18:16 – NumPy evolving from the work of Numeric 00:22:01 – Sponsor: InfluxData 00:22:53 – Python as controlling code for lower-level libraries 00:23:37 – Numba open-source JIT compiler 00:30:09 – Starting to build in Python before learning it all 00:34:45 – Python as the language AI generates 00:36:31 – Guilds and sharing knowledge 00:40:15 – More NumPy backstory 00:46:36 – Contributing to Python 00:48:24 – Video Course Spotlight 00:49:41 – The investment of companies in Python 00:51:22 – Quansight and businesses in open source 00:53:09 – Open Teams and Quansight details 00:57:14 – NumFOCUS and Anaconda 00:58:51 – FairOSS 01:02:36 – Documenting these efforts 01:05:37 – What are you excited about in the world of Python? 01:07:12 – What do you want to learn next? 01:08:10 – How can people follow your work online? 01:10:03 – Thanks and goodbye Show Links: Python: The Documentary - OFFICIAL TRAILER - Coming August 28 - YouTube The Python Matrix Object: Extending Python for Numerical Computation Jim Fulton Jim Hugunin - Home History of SciPy - SciPy wiki dump SciPy NumPy Numba: A High Performance Python Compiler LPython - High performance typed Python compiler OpenTeams: Open SaaS AI Solutions Quansight Consulting OpenTeams Incubator