[Numpy-discussion] NumPy 1.2.0b2 released

[Andrew Dalke]

On Aug 19, 2008, at 1:48 AM, Stéfan van der Walt wrote:
> Wouldn't we want users to have access with
> the doc framework without doing anything special?  And, yes, some of
> the documents are empty, but a number of them have already been
> written.

How do users know that those are present?  How do users
view those docs?  You're the one who added that directory, yes?,
so you've probably got the most experience with it.  I
couldn't figure out it, and the README in the doc/ directory
wasn't helpful.


[josiah:numpy/numpy/doc] dalke% svn log __init__.py
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r5371 | stefan | 2008-07-09 10:13:18 +0200 (Wed, 09 Jul 2008) | 2 lines

Add numpy.doc topical documentation framework.


The files with 1K bytes or less are undocumented

-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff    307 Aug  3 00:59 __init__.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   5203 Aug 15 17:44 basics.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   5413 Aug 15 17:44 broadcasting.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   5078 Aug 15 17:44 creation.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   9854 Aug 15 17:44 glossary.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff     94 Aug  3 00:59 howtofind.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff  14286 Aug 15 17:44 indexing.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   9608 Aug 15 17:44 internals.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff     82 Aug  3 00:59 io.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff     96 Aug  3 00:59 jargon.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff    130 Aug  3 00:59 methods_vs_functions.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff     81 Aug  3 00:59 misc.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff    100 Aug  3 00:59 performance.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   7256 Aug 15 17:44 structured_arrays.py
-rw-r--r--   1 dalke  staff   5520 Aug 15 17:44 ufuncs.py

8 documentation files, 6 placeholder files.

I agree, the load time is very small.  But with all my patches
in place the import time goes down from about 0.18 second to
about 0.10 seconds.  Times add up.


> I still think we are going about this the wrong way.  We have two
> different sets of expectations, and we can't satisfy both by ripping
> everything apart.  I'd much prefer two entry points into NumPy: one
> for people who need speed, and one for those who need the convenience
> of everything being at hand.

I thought I was very careful to not rip things apart. :(

Everything I did was API compatible except for the
proposed removals of numpy.ctypeslib and numpy.doc.  I
chose ctypeslib because importing ctypes takes 10% of
the total load time on my box.  I chose numpy.doc because
I couldn't figure out how it's used.

Now with Robert's go-ahead I'll also remove the "test"
and "bench" entry points from everywhere except numpy.test
and numpy.bench, so I will break some more compatibility.
But not that "bench" doesn't currently work.



I agree about two entry points but that's not going
to happen by the next release.  Actually, here's my quote
from elsewhere in this discussion.

   I happen to think it's a mistake and there are other ways
   to have addressed the underlying requirement, but I know
   that's not going to change. (For example, follow matplotlib
   approach where there's a special library designed to be
   imported in interactive use.  But I am *not* proposing this change.)

I stressed the *not* because so far I've gone through:

   import Numeric
   import numarray
   import numpy

and there's probably also a "from matplotlib import numerix"
somewhere in there.

It seems like every time I use num* (which isn't often) I
need to learn a new library.  I don't want to switch again
for a few years.


				Andrew
				dalke at dalkescientific.com