Contents

1. Argument parsing using argparse
2. Collections
3. Scientific computing

Argument parsing using argparse

Parsing sys.argv yourself can be quite a pain. If your program takes more than one or two fixed arguments, it can be very handy to use argparse, which does all the hard work for you. Take a look at the concordance example to see this in use.

Collections

Many simple tasks like constructing dictionaries with default values and keeping track of counts are made easier by the defaultdict and Counter classes. Take a look at the documentation on collections for an overview.

Scientific computing

Check out NumPy and SciPy. NumPy provides an array type, linear algebra functions, Fourier transform, and a number of other handy numeric features. SciPy provides routines for optimization and integration, reading MATLAB structures, and a number of other useful things.