[Numpy-discussion] Removing masked arrays for 1.7? (Was 1.7 blockers)

[Chris Barker]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 7:46 PM, Travis Oliphant <travis@continuum.io> wrote:
> As Chuck points out, 3 more pointers is not necessarily that big of a deal if you are talking about a large array (though for small arrays it could matter).

yup -- for the most part, numpy arrays are best for workign with large
data sets, in which case a little bit bigger core object doesn't
matter. But there are many times that we do want to work with small
arrays (particularly ones that are pulled out of a larger array --
iterating over an array or (x,y) points or the like)

However, numpy overhead is already pretty heavy for such use, so it
may not matter.

I recall discossion a couple times in the past of having some
special-case numpy arrays for the simple, small cases -- perhaps 1-d
or 2-d C-contiguous only, for instance. That might be a better way to
address the small-array performance issue, and free us of concerns
about minor growth to the core ndarray object.

-Chris




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