[Python-Dev] Infix operators

[Josiah Carlson]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 7:08 PM, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Fredrik Johansson wrote:
>
>> Anyway, it is easy to define pseudo-operators in Python;
>>
>> A *matrixmul* B
>> A *dot* B
>> A *cross* B
>> A *elementwise* B
>
> Urg. This is another one of those recipes that I consider
> is too clever for its own good. Very nice in theory,
> but I would never use it in real life.

That's unfortunate ;), because it's available in Python today, and
with the common local caching of globals, can be as short as 3
characters (M for matrixmul, D for dot, X for cross, E for
elementwise).

> What's more, it doesn't address the real problem at hand,
> which is providing a notation for matrix multiplication
> that is concise enough to be used *very* frequently --
> like multiple times in every line of code that manipulates
> matrices.

This is the first time anyone has mentioned "conciseness" in this
thread.  And what's a 3 character operator between friends?  The "and"
and "not" operators don't seem to be bothered by three characters. ;)

 - Josiah