On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 4:57 AM, Fernando Perez <fperez.net@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Alan McIntyre <alan.mcintyre@gmail.com> wrote:
A specific project along these lines, that would be very beneficial for numpy could be:
- Creating new matrix types in cython that match the cvxopt matrices. The creation of new numpy array types with efficient code would be very useful.
- Rewriting the existing ndarray subclasses that ship with numpy, such as record arrays, in cython. In doing this, benchmarks of the relative performance of the new code should be obtained.
What level of experience do you think would be necessary for the student for this? I've got a fair amount of Python & C experience, and I've used numpy and Pyrex (but not Cython) in the past. I wouldn't mind putting in some time to become familiar with the particulars before submitting a project proposal.
I don't want to put words in others' mouths, since I wouldn't be the one mentoring such a project. I suspect that you'd need to be reasonably familiar with some C programming, because at this point in the game this project might require debugging generated C code and perhaps diving into Cython itself. In the long term we'd like Cython to be so python-like and friendly that those who are *not* C experts can use it effectively for Numpy programming, but that isn't currently the case.
As far as Pyrex/cython, if you know pyrex, you'll be OK with cython. It's only better than pyrex, but is as far as I know mostly, if not fully compatible with pyrex.
I don't have a problem doing any of that, so I'll try to re-familiarize myself my numpy and Cython and see how hard it looks. However, if somebody is already planning on submitting a proposal for one or both of these projects, please let me know so we're not competing with each other needlessly. If anybody is interested in mentoring these, and can offer any advice (or suggestions for other things that need doing), I'd be glad to hear from you. Thanks, Alan