Comment by mikeskim

The way I use Python in machine learning is quite different from how many others in competitive ML use Python. I use Python purely for Python 2.7 with Pypy and try not to touch or use numpy,scipy,pandas,etc. R's data.table is possibly faster than Python's numpy/scipy/pandas. I think anyone claiming Python because of numpy/scipy/pandas is really being mislead. You should be using Python in spite of the need to rely upon numpy/scipy/pandas. If you really need numpy/scipy/pandas just use R and data.table which is amazingly fast. I think Python is really great because of Pypy and the strength of the standard Python library.