On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 3:04 PM Robert Kern <robert.kern@gmail.com> wrote:
I would much, much rather have the special functions in the `np.*` namespace be more accurate than fast on all platforms. These would not have been on my list for general purpose speed optimization. How much time is actually spent inside sin/cos even in a trig-heavy numpy program? And most numpy programs aren't trig-heavy, but the precision cost would be paid and noticeable even for those programs. I would want fast-and-inaccurate functions to be strictly opt-in for those times that they really paid off. Probably by providing them in their own module or package rather than a runtime switch, because it's probably only a part of my program that needs that kind of speed and can afford that precision loss while there will be other parts that need the precision.
What Robert said :) But I still think the ideal would be the runtime option, maybe via the proposed context manager, for them as do need it, or want to try it out. Cheers, Matthew