I suppose it depends on the libraries and what you want to do with them. I personally find the Python REPL in combination with matplotlib, NumPy and SciPy to be extremely handy for poking around in small/medium-sized data sets and debugging numerical apps. Python "stays out of my way" a lot better than Java or C++ would for this ad-hoc kind of exploration.
I'm sure there are probably tons of nice alternatives to Python for this kind of work, and there are tasks that other people need to do for which trying to use Python and some readily-available libs just wouldn't be sufficient. I only suggest Python to people whom I know are doing work where it would be helpful; there's no point in pushing it as a one-size-fits-all solution.
I'm sure there are probably tons of nice alternatives to Python for this kind of work, and there are tasks that other people need to do for which trying to use Python and some readily-available libs just wouldn't be sufficient. I only suggest Python to people whom I know are doing work where it would be helpful; there's no point in pushing it as a one-size-fits-all solution.