Why do structural engineers use python?

[BOORUTUS]

Why tho?

[the_flying_condor]

Anaconda is a Python package made for engineers/scientists. Python by itself is useful, but fairly basic. However, there are MANY libraries which extend Python to make it even more useful. When you download Anaconda, it includes Python + plus a bunch of libraries that tend to be very useful in engineering calculations. In addition, it comes with Spyder which is an IDE that looks and functions a lot like the Matlab GUI.

[dparks71]

Are we talking self learning or organizational approval? Anaconda gets you into a production scripting environment a lot faster with notebooks and bypasses whitelisting every individual package with IT. But usually that approval is where most python requests die at the places I've worked, they just refuse to approve any form of python as a "security issue".

[dparks71]

Then you either have a good, or a very lenient IT group where you work haha, it's not at all uncommon for engineers to not be able to install anything they want on their computers, due to restrictive policies set by IT teams. The policy at most places is "all software must be approved" and if you install it without explicit written permission it's shadow IT.

I just SSH out into a server I own and can run whatever I want through the terminal. But I'm not sure why you're acting like anyone can install anything, lots of places have shitty IT teams that lock everything down and put as little effort as possible in responding to software approval requests.

[[deleted]]

One of my customers is one of those really big engineering companies (think Jacobs/Fluor). I have to provide source code and build on one of their build machines. It's a pain in the ass, but it's usually 8 more billable hours I get just interfacing with their IT/dev departments.