[Numpy-discussion] Numeric3 status

[John Hunter]

>>>>> "konrad" == konrad hinsen <konrad.hinsen at laposte.net> writes:

    konrad> I agree completely. In addition, there is compatibilty:
    konrad> lots of code out there uses the FFT and LinearAlgebra
    konrad> interfaces that have been part of Numeric for many
    konrad> years. numarray has them as well (it just requires a
    konrad> change in the import statements).

I too would be *very disappointed* to see LinearAlgebra, RandomArray
and FFT leave Numeric.  matplotlib requires all three.  Numeric is
lightweight and easy to install, and although the scipy install is
significantly easier than it was in yesteryear, it still has higher
barrier to entry.  I am much happier requiring only Numeric than
Numeric and scipy.

As for the change in import statements, one thing that would be nice
to see in Numeric3 is a package structure for these extra modules that
mirrors numarray's.  This is what the matplotlib numerix module
currently does, and the in the various __init__ files imports either
the Numeric or numarray symbols depending on the configuration
settings.  This seems most sensible since the longer term goal is
integration.

    peds-pc311:~/python/projects/matplotlib/lib/matplotlib> find numerix/ | grep -v CVS
    numerix/
    numerix/mlab
    numerix/mlab/__init__.py
    numerix/linear_algebra
    numerix/linear_algebra/__init__.py
    numerix/__init__.py
    numerix/fft
    numerix/fft/__init__.py
    numerix/_na_imports.py
    numerix/random_array
    numerix/random_array/__init__.py
    numerix/_nc_imports.py


Finally, breaking both backward compatibility with Numeric, and
forward compatibility with numarray, seems ill-advised.

JDH