[Numpy-discussion] [SciPy-user] maskedarray

[Travis E. Oliphant]

Pierre GM wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 December 2007 15:48:01 Tom Johnson wrote:
>   
>> What is the status regarding 'maskedarray'?  When will this become
>> part (replace ma) of the standard distribution?  Also, what is the
>> recommended way to import sandbox modules so that code changes are
>> minimized when (if) the package becomes part of the standard
>> distribution.
>>     
>
>
> Mmh, no answer from our leaders ? Well, for now maskedarray lives in the scipy 
> sandbox, but it probably could be transferred to the numpy sandbox. There's 
> still no particular decision I'm aware of about putting it the official 
> release. More feedback is probably needed from users.
>   

I apologize for not chiming in here.  It has been difficult to keep up 
with all the lists on which I should ostensibly know what is being 
discussed as I have changed jobs and am settling in to new responsibilites.

It seems to me that it is time to move the scipy.sandbox.maskedarray 
implementation over to numpy.ma.

I'm a little concerned about doing this before 1.1, but if the API has 
not changed, then it should be fine.   If there is no opposition, then 
it seems that this can move forward before 1.0.5 which I would like to 
see in January.

For the future 1.1 release (late 2008), I would like to see (in no 
particular priority order):

1) The MA made a C-subclass
2) The matrix object made a C-subclass (for speed).
3) The sparse matrix structure (but not all the algorithms) brought over 
into NumPy with the indexing matching the matrix indexing.
4) Weave brought over into NumPy

The additions should be created in such a way that they can be disabled 
should so that perhaps a numpy-lite could be produced as well.   Or, 
perhaps better separate packages like numpy-devel, numpy-compat, 
numpy-sparse could be created. 

I'm looking forward to some good discussions over the weekend.

-Travis O.