[Numpy-discussion] packaging scipy (was Re: Simple financial functions for NumPy)

[Brian Granger]

>  3) Some don't like the bloat (in disk space or download sizes) of
>  adding things to numpy. In my case, as long as the addition doesn't
>  make installations any more difficult I don't care. For the great
>  majority, the current size or anything within an order of magnitude
>  is not an important issue. For the 56Kb modem people, perhaps we can
>  construct a numpy-lite, but it shouldn't be the standard
>  distribution. I don't mind the financial functions going into numpy.
>  I think it's a good idea since a lot of people may find that very
>  handy to be part of the core distribution, probably many more than
>  worry about more exotic packages, and likely many more than care
>  about fft, random and linear algebra.

The only problem is that if we keep adding things to numpy that could
be in scipy, it will _never_ be clear to users where  they can expect
to find things.  It is already bad enough.  How do I explain to a
user/student/scientist that ffts and linear algebra are in numpy, but
that integration and interpolation are in scipy.  That doesn't make
any sense to them.  Oh but wait, linear algebra and ffts are also in
scipy!  Random numbers - take a guess - wrong, they are in numpy.

As far as I am concerned, financial fucntions are completely outside
the conceptual scope that numpy has established = arrays, fft, linalg,
random.  In fact, they are far outside it.  Simply putting things into
numpy because of convenience (numpy is easier to install) only
encourages people to never install or use scipy.  If scipy that much
of a pain to install and use - we should spend our time improving
scipy.

Cheers,

Brian