[Numpy-discussion] How a transition to C++ could work

[Mark Wiebe]

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Stéfan van der Walt <stefan at sun.ac.za>wrote:

> Hey, Mark
>
> On Feb 18, 2012 11:18 PM, "Mark Wiebe" <mwwiebe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My experience has been that providing a C API from a C++ library is no
> harder than providing a C API from a C library.
>
> Interfacing to compiled C++ libs have been tricky, so can this concern be
> dismissed so easily? (Some examples that came to mind were
> _import_array--easy to fix because it is ours, I guess--or Cython generated
> code).
>
I'm speaking from personal experience having dealt with these types of
issues extensively before. If people have more detailed examples of
problems, possibly links to discussions where one of these problems has
occurred, that would be helpful. This argument isn't very useful if it's
just my positive experience versus others negative experience, we need to
get into specifics to advance the discussion.

-Mark

> > A really important point to emphasize is that C++ allows for a strategy
> where we gradually evolve the codebase to better incorporate its language
> features. This is what I'm advocating. No massive rewrite, no disruptive
> changes. Gradual code evolution, with ABI and API compatibility comparable
> to what we've delivered in 1.6 and the upcoming 1.7 releases.
>
> If we're to switch to C++ (a language that can very easily be wielded in
> terrible ways), then this certainly seems like a sound approach.
>
> Regards
> Stéfan
>
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