[PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] Numerical Recipes

[Paul F. Dubois]

Taking a set of functional numerical software and creating a functional
interface to it is IMHO not a good choice, although it may be easy for Python
considering the power of the language and the various automatic tools such as
FIDL and SWIG.

However, you can do a much nicer job of presenting these facilities to the
user if you use a real OO encapsulation. Also, certain technical issues may
arise, such as when the software expects a function as an argument but the
function you want to pass, such as to an integration routine, is a Python
function, not a C function.

I did a consulting job that involved encapsulating the NAG C library in
Eiffel, which is a compiled OOPL, strongly typed. The result of this work is
in a book just appearing from Prentice Hall, "Object Technology for
Scientific Computing".  If someone got serious about encapsulating various
numerical libraries for Python it might be worth digesting what I did first. 

Disclaimer: I did this library and book on my own time, not for LLNL, which
therefore does not endorse either. However, LLNL has a strong interest in the
creation of numerical facilities for Python and I would be glad to confer
with anyone beginning such a task.

----------
> From: Konrad Hinsen <hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr>
> To: jim.fulton@digicool.com
> Cc: da@maigret.cog.brown.edu; matrix-sig@python.org
> Subject: Re: [PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] Numerical Recipes
> Date: Saturday, October 19, 1996 9:46 AM
> 
> 
> > > I don't mean to rewrite the routines, just provide wrappers.  If the
> > > user has the C library (licensed or whatever), then they can build a
> > > Python module.  Do they copyright the *interface*?
> > 
> > I don't know.
> 
> First, I doubt that would be possible. Second, it would be stupid.
> They provide the routines with the intention that people can use
> them, so if using them would imply a breach of copyright, they
> could as well stop distributing them.
> -- 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> Konrad Hinsen                          | E-Mail: hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr
> Laboratoire de Dynamique Moleculaire   | Tel.: +33-76.88.99.28
> Institut de Biologie Structurale       | Fax:  +33-76.88.54.94
> 41, av. des Martyrs                    | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/
> 38027 Grenoble Cedex 1, France         | Nederlands/Francais
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> 
> =================
> MATRIX-SIG  - SIG on Matrix Math for Python
> 
> send messages to: matrix-sig@python.org
> administrivia to: matrix-sig-request@python.org
> =================

=================
MATRIX-SIG  - SIG on Matrix Math for Python

send messages to: matrix-sig@python.org
administrivia to: matrix-sig-request@python.org
=================