[Numpy-discussion] Numeric to numarray experiences

[Perry Greenfield]

Steve Walton wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-10-05 at 16:00, Flavio Coelho wrote:
> > I wrote 
> > > env USE_LAPACK=1 python setup.py build
> > > 
> > > after editing addons.py appropriately.  You should see a major speed
> > > improvement.
> > > 
> >  
> > 
> > If that is the case, why is it not the default?, at least when LAPACK
> > is installed?
> 
> Well, I won't pretend to speak for the developers on this one.  But I
> strongly suspect it is just too hard to find all possible LAPACK
> distributions;  the default numarray setup should be self contained even
> if somewhat slower.  The current version of Numeric also defaults to its
> own built-in BLAS and requires editing setup.py to use a different one.
> 
Well, it's been a while, and Todd handled that aspect of porting those
from Numeric, but if I recall correctly, the situation was the same
there, and I think Steve is correct. It was to provide the basic 
functionality as part of the distribution without requiring other
installations. If you needed better performance, you jump through a
couple more hoops. But requiring it to use LAPACK makes life more difficult
for those who were looking for a self contained and easy to install
solution.

Perry