[Numpy-discussion] Proposed Roadmap Overview

[Matthieu Brucher]

> Would it be fair to say then, that you are expecting the discussion
> about C++ will mainly arise after the Mark has written the code?   I
> can see that it will be easier to specific at that point, but there
> must be a serious risk that it will be too late to seriously consider
> an alternative approach.
>
>
> We will need to see examples of what Mark is talking about and clarify
> some of the compiler issues.   Certainly there is some risk that once code
> is written that it will be tempting to just use it.   Other approaches are
> certainly worth exploring in the mean-time, but C++ has some strong
> arguments for it.
>

Compilers for C++98 are now stable enough (except on Bluegene, see the
Boost distribution with xlc++)
C++ helps a lot to enhance robustness.ts?

>
> From my perspective having a standalone core NumPy is still a goal.   The
> primary advantages of having a NumPy library (call it NumLib for the sake
> of argument) are
>
> 1) Ability for projects like PyPy, IronPython, and Jython to use it more
> easily
> 2) Ability for Ruby, Perl, Node.JS, and other new languages to use the
> code for their technical computing projects.
> 3) increasing the number of users who can help make it more solid
> 4) being able to build the user-base (and corresponding performance with
> eye-balls from Intel, NVidia, AMD, Microsoft, Google, etc. looking at the
> code).
>
> The disadvantages I can think of:
>  1) More users also means we might risk "lowest-commond-denominator"
> problems --- i.e. trying to be too much to too many may make it not useful
> for anyone. Also, more users means more people with opinions that might be
> difficult to re-concile.
> 2) The work of doing the re-write is not small:  probably at least 6
> person-months
> 3) Not being able to rely on Python objects (dictionaries, lists, and
> tuples are currently used in the code-base quite a bit --- though the
> re-factor did show some examples of how to remove this usage).
> 4) Handling of "Object" arrays requires some re-design.
>
> I'm sure there are other factors that could be added to both lists.
>
> -Travis
>
>
>
> Thanks a lot for the reply,
>
> Matthew
> _______________________________________________
> NumPy-Discussion mailing list
> NumPy-Discussion at scipy.org
> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> NumPy-Discussion mailing list
> NumPy-Discussion at scipy.org
> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
>
>


-- 
Information System Engineer, Ph.D.
Blog: http://matt.eifelle.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieubrucher
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/attachments/20120220/b2843b47/attachment.html>