A pure numpy solution also perfroms reasonably and will be the shortest solutoin (a one-liner in this case)
The pure python approach is very slow, but serves as a useful template for converting to native langauge directly or via a JIT compiler
Note that the fsatest alternatives are approximately 1000 times faster than the pure python version for the test problem with n=1000 and p=3.
--- Optimization bake-off — Computational Statistics in Python 0.1 documentation 
Python functions have attributes that can be introspected on using the inbuilt python dir function --- The Function
Ranking in the top 10 of simplest libraries I've ever used (if you have 2-3 minutes, you can read through the source), fuzzywuzzy is a fuzzy string matching library built by the fine people at SeatGeek. --- ŷhat | 11 Python Libraries You Might Not Know
Coroutines work by enabling the code consuming a generator to send a value back into the generator function after each yield expression. The generator function receives the value passed to the send function as the result of the corresponding yield expression.
--- Effective Python › Item 40: Consider Coroutines to Run Many Functions Concurrently
Testing data analysis pipelines is in some ways a bit trickier than general software testing, because sometimes it's exploratory in nature so there may be no 100% fixed "right" answer. However, code that given input X gave output Y must keep doing this despite changes or the output must be changed in a way that makes it better and still acceptable given some custom but well-defined criteria.
--- The Top Mistakes Developers Make When Using Python for Big Data Analytics
HoloViews is a Python library that makes analyzing and visualizing scientific or engineering data much simpler, more intuitive, and more reproducible. For instance, if you have a two-dimensional dataset like the fractal below, it only takes one line of HoloViews code to mark it with a horizontal line indicating a cross section, add its histogram, sample to get the cross section, and display the result: --- Introduction — HoloViews
demonstrate how you can go about building your own little LLVM specializer for a subset of Python or your own custom DSL expression compiler; and integrating it with the standard NumPy/SciPy stack --- Let's Write an LLVM Specializer for Python! (Stephen Diehl)