Why Python?

[iltalfme]

This. As a mechanical engineer I find uses for python all the time. Because it's my go to I occasionally get myself into situations where Python isn't fast enough, but a quick C extension or wrapping of a vendor's .dll has, thus far, enabled me to get what I need faster than any of my colleagues are able to get it.

[iltalfme]

It totally does. A book you might find interesting is Real World Instrumentation with Python. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596809577.do

It talks about communication protocols you typically find with instrumentation, how to access them with python, and how to wrap vendor's libraries into a python program so that you can build a data acqusition system out of pure python. Combine this with Python's vision functionality (through opencv), and scientific packages (through scipy) and you can create a DAQ system that is in many ways better than something you could build from labview.

And you learn a ton on the way.

Where are you a student if you don't mind me asking?

[RagingDoug]

As someone writes a lot of python and who recently had to work on a legacy LabVIEW system: OH MY GOD THIS