[Numpy-discussion] the path forward

[Keith Goodman]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Travis E. Oliphant
<oliphant at enthought.com> wrote:
>
>  > The problem is that ``x[0]`` being 2d has produced a variety
>  > of anomalies, and the natural fix is for ``x[0]`` to be 1d.
>  >
>  > Gael has argued strongly that she should be able to use the
>  > following notation: ``x[0,:]*A*x[:,0]``.  But this will work
>  > only if ``x[0,:]`` is 2d or if it is 1d but has an "orientation".
>  >
>  > So *if* you think ``x[0] == x[0,:]`` is desirable, *and* you
>  > want to satisfy Gael, *then* it seems you must introduce 1d
>  > "oriented" vectors.
>  >
>  > I believe Travis is also suggesting that we travel that
>  > road, taking a first step as follows:
>  > for now let ``x[0]`` be a 1d array to quickly fix the
>  > anomalies, but let ``x[0,:]`` continue to be a matrix
>  > until the vector code is written, at which point ``x[0]``
>  > and ``x[0,:]`` we be the same "row vector".
>  >
>  > Or so I have understood things.
>  >
>  You've characterized my current thinking pretty well.     I'm less
>  concerned that x[0] != x[0,:] than I think Gael is.

I hope that changing x[0,:] is considered a major change since it will
break most any package based on matrices (mine). And so I hope that
such a change wouldn't show up, if at all, until 2.0.