I think in the attached numpy guide (I downloaded some days ago from numpy website) by Travis E. Oliphant, he talked about some of the development of numpy. and how scipy and numeric evolved to numpy (if I am not wrong here....) hope it can be of a little help. Chao 2011/10/13 Linus Jundén <linus.junden@gmail.com>

Hello everyone!

I am about to make a NumPy presentation for my colleges in about a week. I want to tell them something about the history of the library and what kind of code it relies on. While researching and preparing for this presentation I found it very hard to find information about the origins of the numeric code. I might of course dive into the source code itself but thought that someone else might have the same questions. That's what the list is for, right?

Is NumPy based on some external code like e.g. BLAS, LAPACK etc or is it coded from scratch? Anyone out there that can settle the question?

Regards Linus Jundén Umeå University, Sweden _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion

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On 10/13/11 6:03 AM, Linus Jundén wrote:

I am about to make a NumPy presentation for my colleges in about a week. I want to tell them something about the history of the library and what kind of code it relies on.

Is NumPy based on some external code like e.g. BLAS, LAPACK etc or is it coded from scratch? Anyone out there that can settle the question?

It was coded from scratch -- though does have hooks to BLAS and LAPACK for linear algebra operations. It was originally written by Jim Hugunin, who later went on to write Jython, and then Iron Python. It doesn't look like he updates his web page often, but you should find some good stuff here: http://hugunin.net/index.html As you seem to know, the current numpy code base evolved from the original "Numeric" code, also informed by the "numarray" fork. Here is some intro text from "Numerical Python: An Open Source Project", Sept 7, 2001: """ Numerical Python is the outgrowth of a long collaborative design process carried out by the Matrix SIG of the Python Software Activity (PSA). Jim Hugunin, while a graduate student at MIT, wrote most of the code and initial documentation. When Jim joined CNRI and began working on JPython, he didn't have the time to maintain Numerical Python so Paul Dubois at LLNL agreed to become the maintainer of Numerical Python. David Ascher, working as a consultant to LLNL, wrote most of this document, incorporating contributions from Konrad Hinsen and Travis Oliphant, both of whom are major contributors to Numerical Python. """ I have a paper copy still, but managed to find it on the web, too: [http://dsnra.jpl.nasa.gov/software/Python/numpydoc/index.html] That's the oldest form of the doc I could find quickly. -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