[Matrix-SIG] Numerical plans (fwd)

David Ascher da@ski.org
Thu, 16 Sep 1999 09:17:52 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)


> > Instead, what Paul and I are planning to do is to revert to the old type,
> > but to do UserArray *right*.  The new features that I mention above would
> > then be implemented in new Python classes, which would use array objects
> > as member data (I mean, instance attributes).  
> 
> But any attempt to implement significant functionality in Python
> will lead to the same problem: Most users will end up using some
> Python object, which C modules won't accept as an array.
>
> My personal convention in MMTK is that all high-level "array-like"
> object have an attribute "array" that stores the array object. C
> modules then check for an array, and if the type check fails they get
> the attribute "array" and continue with that. Maybe something similar
> would be a good convention in general.

That's exactly what I had in mind.  We'd just be using UserArray as the
prototype for others to follow.

--david