[Python-ideas] Adding a half-float (16-bit) type to PEP 3118 (and possibly the struct module?)

[Terry Reedy]

On 3/30/2011 10:32 PM, Greg Ewing wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, is the layout of numpy's float16
> based on any existing standard, or is it something purely
> invented by numpy?
>
> If it's a standard format, that would lend more weight
> to the idea of supporting it in the buffer interface.

I understood Robert Kern's statement "I think that it would be 
reasonable to add more when two libraries come with a solid use case, 
like communicating the half-floats that are standard in OpenCL and other 
GPU languages. " to mean that numpy adopted it from OpenCL, etc.
If so, I think Python should definitely add it.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy