Understanding the difference between pyplot and OO API

This recipe will try to explain some of the programming interfaces in matplotlib and make a comparison of pyplot and object-oriented API (Application Programming Interface). Depending on the task at hand, this will allow us to decide why and when to use either of those interfaces.

Getting ready

When the matplotlib library started, it was similar to many open source projects—there was no proper (free) solution to the problem a person had, so he wrote one. The problem encountered with MATLAB® was with performance for the task in hand (http://www.aosabook.org/en/matplotlib.html), and the original author already had knowledge of both MATLAB® and Python, so he started writing matplotlib as a solution for his need for the current project.

This is the main reason matplotlib has a MATLAB®-like interface that allows one to quickly plot data without worrying about background details, which platform matplotlib is running on, which are the underlying...