[PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] Release 0.20 of matrix object is available

[Hinsen Konrad]

   interesting one. While I favor names like IntegerMatrix, ..., reserving
   Matrix to be a "smart" operator that decides on the type from the
   arguments, there is a place for a version with a calculable type or type
   code, so that one can get different things on different platforms with
   the same source by doing tests on the system type.

The "smart" version could take an optional argument indicating the type
somehow. In addition to the typecodes, it would be nice if it would
accept the return values of the builtin function type() . Then you
could write something like
  list = [1,3,2]
  Array(list, type(list[0]))
The typecode will still be needed for the types that have no Python
equivalents, like C-floats.

   I think Array is a better name than Matrix and if 'array' weren't
   already taken would have no hesitation in going ahead. If we picked

Once more, it is only the module name "array" that we can't use. Nothing
else is global in Python.

   Array as the name that is now Matrix, what would we call that which is
   now 'matrix'? ArrayFromSequence ?

I still propose that "Array" should behave like "matrix" does now.
That way we need only one constructor.

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Konrad Hinsen                     | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca
Departement de chimie             | Tel.: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 3953
Universite de Montreal            | Fax:  +1-514-343-7586
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