At the University of Queensland, Python is used for mech engineering courses. One of the other considerations that I think helped give Python the edge was its simplicity, in that it can be 'programming for non-programmers' and helps a lot of newcomers meet the simple scripting requirements they have without needing to understand more complex programming concepts.
Secondly, it makes for an easy transition from Python to Matlab, and Matlab is used a fair bit throughout UQ's Mechanical and Mechatronics departments. They both share very similar syntax (the major issue for most mech engineers, who deal with little more than loops, is that Python is 0-indexed whereas Matlab is 1-indexed).
The above makes Python a great introductory langauge for non-programmer beginners like mech engineers. It is ridiculously simple and human-readable, and when you're outside an IT/EE department then you don't end up spending excess time explaining the quirks of a language to those who will never care for it. On the other hand, it still gives more than enough rope for those that do end up wanting to run with it and they can end up doing some pretty fancy stuff with it.
Does Monash align there in that it's used in the non-IT related technical degrees?
Secondly, it makes for an easy transition from Python to Matlab, and Matlab is used a fair bit throughout UQ's Mechanical and Mechatronics departments. They both share very similar syntax (the major issue for most mech engineers, who deal with little more than loops, is that Python is 0-indexed whereas Matlab is 1-indexed).
The above makes Python a great introductory langauge for non-programmer beginners like mech engineers. It is ridiculously simple and human-readable, and when you're outside an IT/EE department then you don't end up spending excess time explaining the quirks of a language to those who will never care for it. On the other hand, it still gives more than enough rope for those that do end up wanting to run with it and they can end up doing some pretty fancy stuff with it.
Does Monash align there in that it's used in the non-IT related technical degrees?