[C++-sig] GSoC 2011 proposal for improved NumPy wrapper ?

[Neal Becker]

Jim Bosch wrote:

> On 03/23/2011 07:49 AM, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> As you may have heard, Boost has once again been accepted as a mentoring
>> organization in this year's Google Summer of Code program. One of the
>> potential projects that we have been talking about in the past is about
>> improving the NumPy wrapper in Boost.Python.
>> We talked about different shortcomings with the existing "numeric"
>> module, and why a richer API to access NumPy would be useful.
>>
>> Some code to address these shortcomings already exists, and may be used
>> as a starting point for such Boost.Python improvements.
>>
>> Anyone considering to work on this, please get in touch !
> 
> I would definitely like to be involved in this, and I can provide a lot
> of that "existing code".  I'm not sure I can sign up as a full mentor at
> this point - I have a PhD thesis to write this summer that needs to take
> priority - but I'd certainly like to help.
> 
> Jim Bosch

I am very interested in Jim's code, which I've just started using.  Previously, 
I have used pyublas extensively and found it very capable.  But Jim's ndarray 
code adds a lot of functionality.

While I appreciate others wanting to get involved, this is a battle that has 
dragged on for years.  I doubt that even a brilliant newcomer can create 
something even approaching pyublas or ndarray in one summer.

I only have 3 concerns regarding ndarray at present:
1) documentation is thin
2) not sure about efficiency of various usage patterns
3) not sure about future support

On a side note, I'm wondering if the new iterator in numpy-1.6 will be helpful.