[Numpy-discussion] Simple financial functions for NumPy

[Travis E. Oliphant]

Sebastian Haase wrote:
> Hi Travis,
> This sounds of course very interesting, but could you elaborate on the
> reasoning why this should not rather be "only" in SciPy !?
> I thought many people think that numpy was already too crowded and
> should concentrate mostly on being a basic array handling facility.
>   

This is a valid concern and I'm interested in hearing feedback. 

There are only two reasons that I can think of right now to keep them in 
NumPy instead of moving them to SciPy. 

1) These are "basic" functions and a scipy toolkit would contain much more.
2) These are widely used and would make NumPy attractive to a wider 
audience who don't want to install all of SciPy just to get
    these functions.

NumPy already contains functions that make it equivalent to a basic 
scientific calculator, should it not also contain the functions that 
make it equivalent to the same calculator when placed in "financial" mode? 

On the other hand,  package distribution is getting better, and having a 
more modular approach is useful.  I could go both ways on this one.

-Travis O.