[Numpy-discussion] Re: Numeric life as I see it

[konrad.hinsen at laposte.net]

On 10.02.2005, at 05:09, Travis Oliphant wrote:

> I'm not sure I agree.  The ufuncobject is the only place where this  
> concern existed (should we trip OverFlow, ZeroDivision, etc. errors  
> durring array math).   Numarray introduced and implemented the concept  
> of error modes that can be pushed and popped.  I believe this is the  
> right solution for the ufuncobject.

Indeed. Note also that the ufunc stuff is less critical to agree on  
than the array data structure. Anyone unhappy with ufuncs could write  
their own module and use it instead. It would be the data structure and  
its access rules that fix the structure of all the code that uses it,  
so that's what needs to be acceptable to everyone.

> One question we are pursuing is could the arrayobject get into the  
> core without a particular ufunc object.   Most see this as  
> sub-optimal, but maybe it is the only way.

Since all the artithmetic operations are in ufunc that would be  
suboptimal solution, but indeed still a workable one.

> I appreciate some of what Paul is saying here, but I'm not fully  
> convinced that this is still true with Python 2.2 and up new-style  
> c-types.   The concerns seem to be over the fact that you have to  
> re-implement everything in the sub-class because the base-class will  
> always return one of its objects instead of a sub-class object.

I'd say that such discussions should be postponed until someone  
proposes a good use for subclassing arrays. Matrices are not one, in my  
opinion.

Konrad.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------
Konrad Hinsen
Laboratoire Leon Brillouin, CEA Saclay,
91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
Tel.: +33-1 69 08 79 25
Fax: +33-1 69 08 82 61
E-Mail: khinsen at cea.fr
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------