Spyder says about itself that it has
...the support of IPython (enhanced interactive Python interpreter) and
popular Python libraries such as NumPy (linear algebra), SciPy (signal
and image processing) or matplotlib (interactive 2D/3D plotting).
So I think having those available as default is a the right thing to to.
(We can easily make a stripped down spyder expression if needed later.)
I've added the list of recommended and optional dependencies as
described here:
http://pythonhosted.org/spyder/installation.html#dependencies
Spyder (previously known as Pydee) is a powerful interactive development
environment for the Python language with advanced editing, interactive
testing, debugging and introspection features.
The name Spyder comes from Scientific PYthon Development EnviRonment.