Mailman 3 March 2000 - NumPy-Discussion

Moving archives to Sourceforge.
by Travis Oliphant 09 Mar '00

09 Mar '00

I'm responding, but I don't know the answer to your question. I am not familiar with Mailman, or how to move archives on to sourceforge, or if it is even possible. Sorry for the inadequate help, but I suspect that you are not getting a response because nobody knows. Sincerely, Travis Oliphant

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old matric-SIG archives
by Les Schaffer 09 Mar '00

09 Mar '00

well, let me try it this way: 1.) Is this list the place where people who have the capability of moving the old matrix-sig archives from python.org to sourceforge hang out? 2.) If you're here and listening, i see that the sourceforge archives are already searchable, so.... if we moved the old matrix-sig archives over to sourceforge, is there more work need done to make __them__ searchable? i volunteer to make this happen. les schaffer -- ____ Les Schaffer ___| --->> Engineering R&D <<--- Theoretical & Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Center for Radiophysics & Space Research | http://www.designspring.com/ Cornell Univ. schaffer(a)tam.cornell.edu | les(a)designspring.com

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Re: [Numpy-discussion] Volunteer sought for BLAS/LINPACK restructure
by Michael Haggerty 08 Mar '00

08 Mar '00

Hello, "Paul F. Dubois" <pauldubois(a)home.com> writes: > We are seeking a volunteer developer for Numeric who will remove the > current BLAS/LINPACK lite stuff in favor of linking to whatever the > native version is on a particular machine. I don't have much time to help out with the python interface, but I have some (mostly) machine-translated C/C++ header files for LAPACK that might be useful. These files could be SWIGged as a starting point for a python binding. Even better, the perl (*yuck*) script that does the translation could be modified to prototype input vs. output arrays differently (the script determines which arrays are input vs. output from the comment lines from the Fortran source). Then SWIG typemaps could be written that handle input/output correctly and much of the wrapping job would be automated. Of course all this won't help with row vs. column storage format. The header files and a translation script can be obtained from http://monsoon.harvard.edu/~mhagger/download/ Unfortuantely I don't have the same thing for BLAS, mostly because the comments in the BLAS Fortran files are less careful and consistent, making machine interpretation more difficult. Please let me know if you find these headers useful. Yours, Michael -- Michael Haggerty mhagger(a)blizzard.harvard.edu

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RE: [Matrix-SIG] An Experiment in code-cleanup.
by Beausoleil, Raymond 07 Mar '00

07 Mar '00

I've been reading the posts on this topic with considerable interest. For a moment, I want to emphasize the "code-cleanup" angle more literally than the functionality mods suggested so far. Several months ago, I hacked my personal copy of the NumPy distribution so that I could use the Intel Math Kernel Library for Windows. The IMKL is (1) freely available from Intel at http://developer.intel.com/vtune/perflibst/mkl/index.htm; (2) basically BLAS and LAPACK, with an FFT or two thrown in for good measure; (3) optimized for the different x86 processors (e.g., generic x86, Pentium II & III); (4) configured to use 1, 2, or 4 processors; and (5) configured to use multithreading. It is an impressive, fast implementation. I'm sure there are similar native libraries available on other platforms. Probably due to my inexperience with both Python and NumPy, it took me a couple of days to successfully tear out the f2c'd stuff and get the IMKL linking correctly. The parts I've used work fine, but there are probably other features that I haven't tested yet that still aren't up to snuff. In any case, the resulting code wasn't very pretty. As long as the NumPy code is going to be commented and cleaned up, I'd be glad to help make sure that the process of using a native BLAS/LAPACK distribution (which was probably compiled using Fortran storage and naming conventions) is more straightforward. Among the more tedious issues to consider are: (1) The extent of the support for LAPACK. Do we want to stick with LAPACK Lite? (2) The storage format. If we've still got row-ordered matrices under the hood, and we want to use native LAPACK libraries that were compiled using column-major format, then we'll have to be careful to set all of the flags correctly. This isn't going to be a big deal, _unless_ NumPy will support more of LAPACK when a native library is available. Then, of course, there are the special cases: the IMKL has both a C and a Fortran interface to the BLAS. (3) Through the judicious use of header files with compiler-dependent flags, we could accommodate the various naming conventions used when the FORTRAN libraries were compiled (e.g., sgetrf_ or SGETRF). The primary output of this effort would be an expansion of the "Compilation Notes" subsection of Section 15 of the NumPy documentation, and some header files that made the recompilation easier than it is now. Regards, Ray ============================ Ray Beausoleil Hewlett-Packard Laboratories mailto:beausol@hpl.hp.com Vox: 425-883-6648 Fax: 425-883-2535 HP Telnet: 957-4951 ============================

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moving matrix-SIG archives to SourceForge
by Les Schaffer 06 Mar '00

06 Mar '00

Is there any chance of getting the old matrix-SIG archives moved over to SourceForge location and have them made searchable? i wanted to look up stuff on broadcast rules in NumPy and remembered there were posts on it in the old archives, but i dont see any way to search the things. thanks les schaffer

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numpy on NT
by JEFFERY COLLINS 02 Mar '00

02 Mar '00

A colleague is attempting to install numpy on an NT machine. How is this done? I tried to help, but the install procedure is apparently different from what I am accustomed on Unix. It appears that the python-numpy-15.2.zip is a precompiled distribution ready for dumping into some directory. Since it doesn't contain a setup.py, I presume that Distutils isn't necessary. Also, what is the accepted way of setting PYTHONPATH on NT? Thanks, Jeff

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python FAQTS
by Joe Van Andel 02 Mar '00

02 Mar '00

I just started looking at the new Python Knowledge Base, maintained at http://python.faqts.com This looks like a nice simple way of maintaining FAQs and link collections. I've already registered, and started building links to various packages that work with Numeric Python. Since sourceforge.net doesn't seem to offer these collaborative FAQ building tools, I'd propose that we should add to the existing Numeric Python FAQs, and expand the link collection that I've (just) started. Could we add a link to the (Numeric) Python Knowledge Base to Numeric Python's home on sourceforge? -- Joe VanAndel National Center for Atmospheric Research http://www.atd.ucar.edu/~vanandel/ Internet: vanandel(a)ucar.edu

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Re: Numpy-discussion digest, Vol 1 #20 - 5 msgs
by Greg Kochanski 02 Mar '00

02 Mar '00

Look at Scientific Python (see http://starship.python.net/crew/hinsen/scientific.html ) for some differentiation routines. > From: Hassan Aurag <aurag(a)crm.umontreal.ca> > Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 14:32:48 GMT > To: Gmath-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net, numpy-discussion(a)lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: [Numpy-discussion] Derivatives > > Hi, > > attached is a file called Derivative.py. > > It computes derivatives and is based on an algorithm found in > Numerical Recipes in C. > > What to do you think about it and has anyone started a "serious" > calculus oriented subpackage for Numerical Python in general?

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Survey results
by Travis Oliphant 02 Mar '00

02 Mar '00

I'm still here working away at the code cleanup of Numerical Python. I know some of you may be interested in the results of a survey related to that effort. Here are the results so far: 1: How long have your been using NumPy: 19 response: <= 1 year: 8 1-3 years: 6 4-5 years: 5 2: How important is NumPy to your daily work now? (1-Depend on it, 5-Dabble with it) 1 - 17 2 - 5 3 - 5 4 - 3 Avg: 1.8 3: How would you rate the current functionality of NumPy? (1-Love it, 5-Hate it) 1 - 2 2 - 19 3 - 8 4 - 1 Avg: 2.27 4: How important is it to you for NumPy to get into the Python core? (1-Very Important, 5-Not Important) 1 - 8 2 - 14 3 - 4 3 - 4 Avg: 2.1 5: How much interest do you have in improving NumPy? (1-Unlimited, 5-None) 1 - 10 2 - 13 3 - 7 Avg: 1.9 6: How concerned are you about alterations to the underlying C-structure of NumPy? (1-Very concerned, 5-Don't care)) 1 - 3 2 - 2 3 - 8 4 - 5 5 - 12 Avg: 3.7 7: How important is memory conservation to you? (1-Very important, 5-Not important) 1 - 11 2 - 10 3 - 6 4 - 1 5 - 2 Avg: 2.1 8: How important is it to you that the underlying code to NumPy be easy to understand? (1-Very important, 5-Not important) 1 - 7 2 - 13 3 - 5 4 - 5 Avg: 2.3 9: How important is it to you that NumPy be fast? (1-Very important, 5-Not important) 1 - 22 2 - 7 3 - 1 Avg: 1.3 10: How happy are you with the current coercion rules (including spacesaving arrays)? (1-Happy, 5-Miserable) 1 - 3 2 - 13 3 - 10 4 - 2 Avg: 2.4 11: Should mixed-precision arithmetic cast to the largest memory type (yes) or the least memory type (no)? Yes - 23 No - 6 12: Should object arrays (typecode='O') remain a part of NumPy? (1-Agree, 5-Disagree) 1 - 13 2 - 3 3 - 10 4 - 2 Avg: 2.1 13: Should slices (e.g. x[3:10]) be changed to be copies? Yes - 12 No - 16 So, as you can see the results were pretty clear in some areas and quite controversial in other areas. Have fun interpreting them... Travis

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Derivatives (fwd)
by Zow Terry Brugger 02 Mar '00

02 Mar '00

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hassan, This seemed relevant to pass back to the numeric list - hope you don't mind. My comments follow. - ------- Forwarded Message

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