[Numpy-discussion] ANN: numarray-0.4 released

[Perry Greenfield]

> That's good news!!
> Since I just signed up to this list I have some (more general questions)
> 1) How active is this list ? Now I get like 1-2 emails a day (but 3 months
> ago or so I got like 20 ...)

Yes, it has been slower lately (there are sometimes related discussions
on the scipy mailing lists that appear to have more traffic lately.

> 2) Are most people here talking about Numeric (NumPy) or numarray ?
>     Who is actively writing/implementing numarray and is there a specific
> mailing list for that ?
>
No specific mailing list for numarray. I'd guess that currently the
largest user community for numarray is the astronomical one, primarily
because we are distributing software that requires it to the community.
Probably not many developers for yet now, but we are starting to look
at making scipy compatible with numarray, and settle some remaining
interface issues (but I'm going to wait until after Thankgiving before
starting that).

> 3) I was just starting with some C code to generate numarray lists (a week
> ago) and now
>     the main data struct (NDarray) just disappeared... is that
> good news !?
>     (Maybe the question should be: What is a "first class" python
> object ? )

Good news. Probably not if you wrote code using it ;-), but we changed
it so that numarray would be more compatible with existing Numeric
C extensions, and that was the price for doing so. I think it is
good news for those that have have existing C extensions for whenever
they plan to migrate to numarray. Todd should answer detailed questions
about the C interface, but he cleverly decided to go on vacation after
releasing 0.4 until December 9.

> 4) In NDarray there was a special pointer (void *imag) for complex data.
> (without much documentation actually..)
>     How are complex array handled in numarray 0.4?  Examples would be nice
> !! ;-)
>
Writing up documentation for C-API issues is a big need and a high priority.
>