[Python-Dev] calculator module

[Raymond Hettinger]

[Raymond]
> > I was thinking that if a student's calculator can do something, then
> > Python ought to handle most of the same tasks right out of the box.

[Aahz]
> +1
> 
> Write a PEP.  ;-)  I'd run a pre-PEP discussion on c.l.py to see what
> people want in the module, then write the PEP after implementation.

Will do.

This is one subject that everyone will have an opinion about ;-)

Also, I'll clarify the part about numerical accuracy.  The other
respondent took "pretty good" as meaning sloppy.  What was meant was
using the best algorithms and approximations that can be implemented
cleanly and portably.  This is a high standard, but much lower than
would be expected of a system library (down to the last ULP or pretty
close to it).  A practical and important consequence of "pretty good" is
that we can ignore bug reports that say "last two digits of gamma(3.1)
don't agree with Matlab."


Raymond Hettinger