getting access to python sympy [ for symbolic mathematics scipy [ for advanced scientific computing python or python comes in two versionsversion and and these are not fully compatible howeverfor the programs in this bookthe differences are very smallthe major one being printwhich in python is statement like print ' :' ' :' while in python it is function call print' :' ' :'bthe authors have written python code in this book in way that makes porting to version or later trivialmost programs will just need fix of the print statement this can be automatically done by running to prog py to transform python program prog py to its python counterpart one can also use tools like future or six to easily write programs that run under both versions and or the futurize program can automatically do this for you based on code since many tools for doing scientific computing in python are still only available for python version we use this version in the present bookbut emphasize that it has to be and not older versions there are different ways to get access to python with the required packages use computer system at an institution where the software is installed such system can also be used from your local laptop through remote login over network install the software on your own laptop use web service system administrator can take the list of software packages and install the missing ones on computer system for the two other optionsdetailed descriptions are given below using web service is very straightforwardbut has the disadvantage that you are constrained by the packages that are allowed to install on the service there are services at the time of this writing that suffice for working with most of this bookbut if you are going to solve more complicated mathematical problemsyou will need more sophisticated mathematical python packagesmore storage and more computer resourcesand then you will benefit greatly from having python installed on your own computer