On 6/4/2009 5:27 PM Tommy Grav apparently wrote:
Or the core development team split the matrices out of numpy and make it as separate package that the people that use them could pick up and run with.
This too would be a mistake, I believe. But it depends on whether a goal is to have more people use NumPy. I believe the community will gain from growth. My core concern here is keeping NumPy very friendly for teaching. This will mean keeping a matrix object in NumPy. For this purpose, I have found the existing matrix object to be adequate. (I am teaching economics students, who generally do not have prior programming experience.) I believe that this is crucial for "recruiting" new users, who might otherwise choose less powerful tools that appear to be more friendly on first encounter. In sum, my argument is this: Keeping a matrix object in NumPy has substantial benefits in encouraging growth of the NumPy community, and as far as I can tell, it is imposing few costs. Therefore I think there is a very substantial burden on people who propose removing the matrix object to demonstrate just how the NumPy community will benefit from this change. Alan Isaac