As you saw in some of the examples in this course, there’s no getting around the fact that matplotlib can be a technical, syntax-heavy library. Creating a production-ready chart sometimes requires a half hour of Googling and combining a hodgepodge of lines in order to fine-tune a plot.

However, understanding how the interfaces interact is an investment that can pay off down the road. Taking the time to dissect code rather than resorting to the Stack Overflow “copy pasta” solution tends to be a smarter long-term solution. Sticking to the object-oriented approach can save hours of frustration when you want to take a plot from plain to a work of art.

Congratulations, you made it to the end of the course! What’s your #1 takeaway or favorite thing you learned? How are you going to put your newfound skills to use? Leave a comment in the discussion section and let us know.

00:00 As shown by the examples in this video, there’s no getting around the fact that Matplotlib can be a technical, syntax-heavy library. It’s certainly not an easy library to learn. Creating a production-ready chart sometimes requires a half an hour of Googling and combining a hodgepodge of lines of code in order to fine-tune a plot, and even then you start to ask yourself, “Is this the best way to do this?” That’s the kind of thing you only learn with experience. Understanding how Matplotlib’s interfaces interact is an investment that can pay off down the road.

00:43 As Real Python’s own Dan Bader says, taking the time to dissect code rather than resorting to the Stack Overflow “copy pasta” solution tends to be a smarter long-term solution.

00:59 As you’ve seen, sticking to the object-oriented approach can save hours of frustration when you want to take a plot from plain and boring to a work of art.

01:11 We’ve seen some really cool visualizations in this course, and I encourage you to mess around with them and create some more visualizations on your own. I’m Austin Cepalia with realpython.com.

01:24 Happy coding!

lordchuffnel on Nov. 2, 2019

Thanks for the video.

pshekhar2707 on March 7, 2020

Good to understand difference between Stateless and Stateful approach of plotting

glaucorolim on May 3, 2020

Thanks, very clear! understanding the principles… we can move forward

nihalsaRealPython on June 27, 2020

Good summary but a bit dense/fast for beginners. Tried at 0.75 video speed, which distorts the audio. I ended up pausing and repeating a few times. Overall good course. Next:Seaborn.

aniketbarphe on Sept. 4, 2021

It will be great help if get PDF of theory part as well as documented form of code as it makes lot of mistakes while typing the same code.

Glenn Lehman on Sept. 13, 2021

Great learning experience!

I appreciated the advise to type out all the code. This allowed me to modify some of the items and see how this changed the output. Plus my typing skills allowed me to practice some basic debugging.

Thank you.

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Python Plotting With Matplotlib (Summary)