[Numpy-discussion] NumPy 1.0 release-candidate 1.0 this weekend

[Victoria G. Laidler]

Francesc Altet wrote:

>El dj 14 de 09 del 2006 a les 02:11 -0700, en/na Andrew Straw va
>escriure:
>  
>
>>>>My main focus is on the fact that you might read '<i4' as
>>>>"less" than 4-bytes int, which is very confusing !
>>>>  
>>>>    
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>I can agree it's confusing at first, but it's the same syntax the struct 
>>>module uses which is the Python precedent for this.
>>>  
>>>      
>>>
>>I'm happy with seeing the repr() value since I know what it means, but I
>>can see Sebastian's point. Perhaps there's a middle ground -- the str()
>>representation for simple dtypes could contain both the repr() value and
>>an English description. For example, something along the lines of
>>"dtype('<i4') (4 byte integer, little endian)". For more complex dtypes,
>>the repr() string could be given without any kind of English translation.
>>    
>>
>
>+1
>
>I was very used (and happy) to the numarray string representation for
>types ('Int32', 'Complex64'...) and looking at how NumPy represents it
>now, I'd say that this is a backwards step in readability. Something
>like '<i4' would look good for a low-level library, but not for a
>high-level one like NumPy, IMO.
>  
>
I agree entirely.
The first type I got '<i4' instead of 'Int32', my reaction was "What the 
hell is that?"
It looked disturbingly like line-noise corrupted text to me! (Blast from 
the past...)

+1 from me as well.

Vicki Laidler