I happen to see an interesting post in the Python mailing list. The question was to know who uses Python, other than sys-admins and web developers. And here is a consolidation of the replies till now.

For login scripts, locking down PCs, automating backups, GIS, and more.

Electrical engineering. It’s pretty handy for writing programs to talk to embedded systems using various protocols/interface (async-serial, ethernet, etc.). It’s also good for analyzing communications, analyzing performance tests for analog instruments, and so on.

The Technical Artists are using Python more and more for development needs.

For digital art (music visualization). It’s excellent for data analysis (I’ve done everything from stats on lines in an SQL database to mining flat text files of data for statistical projections of MLB baseball player performance). I know a couple of

people who sell a double-entry accounting system written in Python, which is presumably “finance”. Web analytics is very common (I’ve seen several such projects)

people who sell a double-entry accounting system written in Python, which is presumably “finance”. Web analytics is very common (I’ve seen several such projects) we use Python for controlling fully automated logistics solutions (conveyors and stacker cranes), for generating PLC code etc.

There is also a very long reply on how Python has been used for Railway Computer-control Simulation which lists the use of Python 2.5 as,

The main database where all states are kept (signal aspects, given and actual turnout states, track occupation …). It’s a simple binary protocol using TCP; the server maintains string:int pairs in a Python dict. It’s made with Twisted and running under twistd.

The automatic drive controlling software of the model trains. It listens for changes of signals and track occupation and controls the model trains using a commercial digital model railroad controller attached to /dev/ttyS0. Also using Twisted/twistd, and

pyserial.

Various helper scripts and little servers for small functional units (tramway reverser, level crossings)

This is the latest one I read,

To manage the database application, data integration, and reporting

to shuffle and sort important files around, to convert reports into formats necessary for various import and export functions, to reconcile data between database systems, and to maintain little text databases for various business processes.

Some other common replies includes text search, data mining and biotechnology. Nice to hear about some real time uses of Python, different from the usual administration and web stuffs. 🙂