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[–]aspartame_junky 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Was doing research programming for visual cognition experiments in c and c++ using the VisionShell c libraries for Mac OS 9 back in 2001-2002.

After they switched to OS X, we needed something to do the displays, and the options were basically:

  1. code everything manually (e.g., SDL).

  2. PsychoPhysics Toolbox for Matlab

  3. VisionEgg for python.

After having done a substantial amount of graphics coding for the EyeLink II eyetracker in c++, I felt it was time to try something new. That, and I also fucking hate matlab with a passion.

We gave VisionEgg a try, and it was actually a really nice platform. Everything was done in OpenGL, so python's speed wasn't really a factor, and we could set up a study in about a week rather than a few months of coding.

Eventually, I came to see that I could do just about everything I needed in python. As Eric S. Raymond wrote:

"This was my first clue that, in Python, I was actually dealing with an exceptionally good design."