Anne Archibald wrote:
Numpy provides ufuncs as general powerful tools for operating on matrices. More can be added relatively easily, they provide not just the basic "apply" operation but also "outer" and others. Adding another way to accomplish the same operation just adds bulk to numpy.
Maybe so, but if it were up to me, I'd have just the methods, and not the functions -- I like namespaces and OO design. I've always thought it was a spurious argument that these kinds of functions can operate on things that aren't numpy arrays -- it's true, but they all return arrays, to it's not like they really are universal.
Surely you don't want to see myarray.arctan()?
This was debated a fair bit on this list when the other methods were added. Personally, I like functions, rather than methods for things that "feel" like standard math -- trig functions, etc. I guess abs() kind of falls on the line. All I know is that I expected abs() to be a method this time. -Chris -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov