[Numpy-discussion] Re: [SciPy-user] nd_image

[Travis Oliphant]

joris at ster.kuleuven.ac.be wrote:

>   [TO]: So, what we have in SciPy is "the official" home for the numpy
>   [TO]: version of his package. 
>
>Sorry, I am a bit lost here. So nd_image was a numarray library, and is now
>available via scipy where it works with numpy arrays (correct?). 
>
nd_image was a Package that built on top of numarray and was also 
distributed with numarray.    Exactly what goes in the base numpy 
backage and what goes into add-on packages is a question we will wrestle 
with for a while. 

With the existence of SciPy, I don't favor growing NumPy much beyond the 
(general) feature-set it has now.  There are already people who grumble 
that it includes too-much stuff that they don't need.  

Other functionality should be added by other packages.   We are trying 
to make SciPy into a large collection of packages that don't all have to 
be installed, so that users can pick and choose what they need if they 
must.


>At the moment,
>the library is unmaintained though, regardless whether it would be part of
>scipy or numpy. Correct? If so, why exactly would it be better to put it under
>scipy rather than under numpy?
>  
>
Not directly accurate.  The SciPy version is maintained by the SciPy 
developers (not by the original author).

>Some people don't need scipy for their work and are happy with numpy alone.
>It used to be rather easy for them to use nd_image with numarray, but if I
>understand you correctly, they would now have to install an entire new package,
>  
>
Many SciPy packages can be installed separately and nd_image (now 
scipy.image)  is one of them.    So, it is very easy to just install the 
scipy.image package.   Hopefully, more people will run with this concept 
as the need arises.

And, scipy is not has hard to install as you might think.  Especially if 
you go into the setup.py file and comment out all the packages you don't 
actually want...


-Travis