[Python-ideas] Fwd: [RFC] draft PEP: Dedicated infix operators for matrix multiplication and matrix power

[Robert Kern]

On 2014-03-14 17:53, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> - Did you consider a duck-typing (is that the word?) attribute?
>    E.g. a*b is elementwise multiplication; a.M*b must be used for
>    matrix multiplication.  (Your use of .T as "transpose" made me think
>    of this.)  Of course the question is, can you get those packages
>    that currently use * for matrix multiply to comply? (I don't consider
>    this a serious counter-proposal. But you list a bunch of rejected
>    alternatives; this could be in that list.

Apparently this *was* considered in PEP 225 under "Alternatives to adding new 
operators", numbers 3 and 4.

   http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0225/

Of course, number 6 is "Introducing a single operator, such as @, for matrix 
multiplication." :-)

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco