[Numpy-discussion] Some comments on the draft PEP (Rev 1.8)

[Colin J. Williams]

Basic Types

    There is no mention of the record.  This was one of the useful ideas 
from COBOL and carried over by PL/1.  See numarray.record.py.

    I suggest it is worth continuing.

Sequence and Mapping 2)  The advanced indexing seems to offer masked 
extraction from an array, some examples would help.

                                     3)  I've always wondered about the 
rank 0 array.  If such values are returned as scalars then the 
processing inside the array package is increased slightly.  If they are 
returned as an array then there is more work to be done in the Python 
code outside the the array package.  My preference is to return a scalar.

Iterator.   A scalar appears to be much better in this case.

Methods.  Why not use properties for those methods which don't require 
arguments?

                Some of the maybes are number oriented but the basic 
Array is intended to have a wider scope than just numbers.

Implementation Plan   The usual convention is that class/type names 
start with a capital, thus Array, rather than array.  This should clash 
with a name on the existing array module.  It is good to see that the 
Array is to be sub-classable.  This is one of the weaknesses of 
numarray.  'efficiencies' meant that Python's introspection is not fully 
available in NumArray.

C Structures              Is NOTSWAPPED, based on system order, going to 
give trouble if data is exported from one system to another?

Type characters         My feeling is that the numarray.numerictypes 
descriptors are clearer for the user who has not memorized the 
typecodes.  It takes a little more space overhead but simplifies the 
Array repr.  With an editor, such as PythonWin, one can enter 
'MN.numerictypes.'.  The editor responds with a drop down list of 
available types - MN is an abbreviated code for the imported modules 
name (I don't use from X import *).  The programmer does not have to 
remember the non mnemonic letter codes.

One final request.             In the instance constructor, please avoid 
the use of 'type' as a parameter name if the constructor is implemented 
in Python.  This hides the builtin type(), which is sometimes useful in 
debugging or exploring code.

I hope that this is of some help.

Colin W.