On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 02:30, Stéfan van der Walt <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
2008/8/15 Travis E. Oliphant <oliphant@enthought.com>:
So, what is the attitude of people here? Here's my take:
I wonder if we are going about this process the right way. We will forever be adjusting imports to improve load times. Why don't we provide an alternate API, something like numpy.api from which you can import exactly what you want? We can disable populating the full numpy namespace by exporting an environment variable or setting some flag. This way, importing numpy is instantaneous, whilst our interactive users still get the full benefit of having everything available?
The devil is in the details. What exactly do you propose? When we discussed this last time, the participants more or less agreed that environment variables could cause more fragility than they're worth. It also breaks the first time you try to import a numpy-using library that was not written with this in mind. Basically, you're stuck with only code that you've written. -- Robert Kern "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -- Umberto Eco