[Numpy-discussion] Proposed Roadmap Overview

[Russell E. Owen]

In article 
<CAGY4rcXxL8poS5ZCWA4thCG0dhKyEsoEPJSO4Z05SZ_PqjvO2Q@mail.gmail.com>,
 David Cournapeau <cournape@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 10:50 PM, Sturla Molden <sturla@molden.no> wrote:
> 
> > Â > In an ideal world, we would have a better language than C++ that can
> > be spit out as > C for portability.
> >
> > What about a statically typed Python? (That is, not Cython.) We just
> > need to make the compiler :-)
> 
> There are better languages than C++ that has most of the technical
> benefits stated in this discussion (rust and D being the most
> "obvious" ones), but whose usage is unrealistic today for various
> reasons: knowledge, availability on "esoteric" platforms, etc… A new
> language is completely ridiculous.

I just want to say that C++ has come a long way. I used to hate it, but 
now that it has matured, and using some basic features of boost 
(especially shared_ptr) can turn it into a really nice language. The 
next version will be even better, but one can write nice C++ today.

shared_ptr allows objects that easily manage their own memory (basic 
automatic garbage collection).

Generic programming seems like a really good fit to numpy's array types.

I am part of a large project that codes in C++ and Python and we find it 
works very well for us.

I can't imagine working in C anymore and doing without exception 
handling and namespaces. So I'm sorry to hear that C++ is not being 
considered for a numpy rewrite.

-- Russell