[Numpy-discussion] NumPy foundations

[Bruce Southey]

On 10/13/2011 10:53 AM, Chris.Barker wrote:
> On 10/13/11 6:03 AM, Linus Jundén wrote:
>> I am about to make a NumPy presentation for my colleges in about a
>> week. I want to tell them something about the history of the library
>> and what kind of code it relies on.
>> Is NumPy based on some external code like e.g. BLAS, LAPACK etc or is
>> it coded from scratch? Anyone out there that can settle the question?
> It was coded from scratch -- though does have hooks to BLAS and LAPACK
> for linear algebra operations. It was originally written by Jim Hugunin,
> who later went on to write Jython, and then Iron Python. It doesn't look
> like he updates his web page often, but you should find some good stuff
> here:
>
> http://hugunin.net/index.html
>
> As you seem to know, the current numpy code base evolved from the
> original "Numeric" code, also informed by the "numarray" fork.
>
> Here is some intro text from "Numerical Python: An Open Source Project",
> Sept 7, 2001:
>
> """
> Numerical Python is the outgrowth of a long collaborative design process
> carried out by the Matrix SIG of the Python Software Activity (PSA). Jim
> Hugunin, while a graduate student at MIT, wrote most of the code and
> initial documentation. When Jim joined CNRI and began working on
> JPython, he didn't have the time to maintain Numerical Python so Paul
> Dubois at LLNL agreed to become the maintainer of Numerical Python.
> David Ascher, working as a consultant to LLNL, wrote most of this
> document, incorporating contributions from Konrad Hinsen and Travis
> Oliphant, both of whom are major contributors to Numerical Python.
> """
>
> I have a paper copy still, but managed to find it on the web, too:
>
> [http://dsnra.jpl.nasa.gov/software/Python/numpydoc/index.html]
>
> That's the oldest form of the doc I could find quickly.
>
> -Chris
>
>
>
>
>
A view of the history can be found at:
http://www.scipy.org/History_of_SciPy/

I thought Paul DuBois had more on this as I only managed to find this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010410225234/http://pfdubois.com/numpy/

Not clear if Numerical-15 could not link to external lapack libraries 
but Numeric 16 (29-Aug-2000) onwards could. You can find 
Numerical-15.3.tgz (08-May-2000) or later Numeric versions on the web 
(sourceforge only has Numeric 24 onwards):
http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/sourceforge/n/project/nu/numpy/OldFiles/


Bruce