On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 4:20 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
When does a program need *both* absolute and relative tolerance in a single test?
It's reasonably common in numpy, where the equivalent function is vectorized to do multiple checks at once,
exactly -- as do a buch of the the unittest assertXXXX methods or if folks write their own equivalent in a comprehension.
if 'math' doesn't provide this then many people will use libraries that will or else write their own.
sure -- that's what been done for ages... you could say that about anything new being proposed for the stdlib.
I guess I don't have a good sense of what the audience for 'math' is these days -- I'm sure it has one, but aside from tiny one-off usages I'm not sure what it is. None of the production numerical code I see even bothers importing it.
Well, I'm a heavy numpy user as well, but I still use the math module when I have something simple to calculate (actually, not so much simple as small -- if I'm not working with a lot of numbers) or if I don't want the numpy dependency. A lot of people do at least some math with python -- I have no idea how many. And the statistics package was recently added -- I would have thought that would be next to useless without numpy, but shows you what I know.
It's possible that it largely serves a kind of pedagogical role? high schoolers learning to program etc.?
anyone learning python may need a bit of math -- there's some pretty basic stuff in there. The most compelling argument I see is that if we care about unittest,
then it would be good to have a better alternative to assertAlmostEqual. (...I don't know anyone who uses the unittest API directly these days, though!)
I agree -- adding it to unitest would be a very good idea. -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