[Numpy-discussion] Numeric 24.0

[Chris Barker]

Travis Oliphant wrote:
>  It would help 
> if  more people could provide public support on this forum

Easy enough. I. for one am very happy about what Travis is doing. It 
seems to be exactly what is needed to mend the Numeric-numarray split, 
which has been an annoyance for a couple years now. I'm also VERY happy 
about the proposed array protocol. While I suppose it could facilitate 
the creation of other array packages, that is only speculation, and 
unlikely, in my judgment. What is I'm quite sure is going to happen is 
that other packages that do not provide an array implementation will be 
able to efficiently take arrays as input without crating a dependence on 
any particular package. I intend to make sure wxPython can efficiently 
take Numeric24 arrays, for instance. (Now that I think about it, it 
would be great if we could get this into wxPython2.6, which will be out 
pretty darn soon. I'm very pressed for time right now..can anyone help?)

 > It would also help if other
> people who have concerns would voice them (I'm very grateful for those 
> who have expressed their concerns) so that we can all address them and 
> get on the same page for future development.

My only concern is versioning. Particularly when under rapid development 
(but really this applies anytime), I'd really love to be able to have 
more than one version of Numeric (or SciPy.base, or whatever) installed 
at once, and be able to select which one is used at runtime, in code 
(before importing the first time, of course). This would facilitate 
testing, but also allow me to have a working environment for older apps 
that will continue to work, without modification or re-compiling, after 
installing a newer version.

Something like wxPython's wxversion is what I have in mind.

http://wiki.wxpython.org/index.cgi/MultiVersionInstalls

-Chris


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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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