How to perform an analysis in high energy phyisics with minimal use of C++

Today's frameworks for analysis are evergrowing in functionality. Unfortunately their complexity seems to grow at an even faster rate.
Simple tasks become difficult and cost time, both to learn in the first place, but also to perform.
The Python language seems to gain a lot of momentum in the field; more and more libraries are offered with bindings to this language.
This page is meant as a cookbook to show that simple tasks can still be simple.

Ingredients

Program	Purpose
Python	Dynamic language with a clear syntax
scipy	Scientific libraries for many disciplines
matplotlib	A plotting package that offers a matlab-like environment
paida	AIDA compatible histogramming. The produced files can be read by JAS and other AIDA-compliant packages
pytables	library for persistence of hierarchical data structures. Uses the HDF5 file format developed by the national center for supercomputing