[Numpy-discussion] Numpy x Matlab: some synthetic benchmarks

[Fernando Perez]

Perry Greenfield wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2006, at 6:21 PM, Fernando Perez wrote:

> Really :-). I remember that conversation and wondered if it had 
> something to do with that. (And I remember Paul Dubois talking to me 
> about similar ideas).  I think it is worth trying (and has been I see, 
> though I would have expected perhaps even a greater speed improvement; 
> somehow I think it should not take a lot of time if you don't need all 
> the type, shape and striding flexibility). It just needs someone to do 
> it.

Maybe putting David's code into the sandbox would be a good starting point.

>>>new then either. I have to believe that if you allowed only Float64  
>>>(and perhaps a complex variant) and used other restrictions then it  
>>>would be much faster for small arrays. One would think it would be 
>>>much  easier to implement than Numeric/numarray/numpy... I've always 
>>>thought  that those looking for really fast small array performance 
>>>would be  better served by something like this. But you'd really have 
>>>to fight  off feature creep. ("This almost meets my needs. If it 
>>>could only do  xxx")
>>
>>Couldn't that last issue be well dealt with by the fact that today's 
>>numpy is fairly subclassing-friendly? (which, if I remember correctly, 
>>wasn't quite the case with at least old Numeric).
> 
> 
> Does that help? You aren't talking about the fast array subclassing 
> numpy are you? I'm not  sure what you mean here.

What I meant was that by having good subclassing functionality, it's easier to 
ward off requests for every feature under the sun.  It's much easier to say:

'this basic object provides a very small, core set of array features where the 
focus is on raw speed rather than fancy features; if you need extra features, 
subclass it and add them yourself'

when the subclassing is actually reasonably easy.  Note that I haven't 
actually used array subclassing myself (haven't needed it), so I may be 
mistaken in my comments here, it's just an intuition.

Cheers,

f