Discussion: new math operators

[Neil Hodgson]

> ...  Surprisingly (maybe not,
> considering the math-oriented constituency), the third option draws the
most
> praise and almost not criticism.  It has more variations and have more
> potential for the future.  Despite that, imo, it is unlikely to be
accepted
> eventually, because it would not play well with by non-math audience.

   As one of the more reactionary Pythoneers with regard to syntax changes
and as someone who is unlikely to ever need to use the new operators, I say
the braced operators are the best.

   The .* style operators merge with the surrounding expression in a way
that leads to me confusing whether they are interpreted with their normal
meaning. The braced operator sequences like (*) merge together into one
visual entity. When encountered by someone for the first time, its fairly
obvious that they mean something new and not just a weird way of spelling a
current operation.

   The braced operators give a reasonable basis for future expansion
although it looks like you have used up all the best ones already. If this
is going to be used for future expansion, I'd like to see precedence looked
at closely now with all braced operators at lowest precedence.

   It may help to write a short demonstration script that intensively uses
matrix operations to show what code based on these proposals will look like.

   Neil