switching to numpy and failing, a user story

[Robert Kern]

Istvan Albert wrote:
> No one is questioning one's right to try to sell a product/book etc.
> But I happen to believe that trying to make money by selling the docs
> is stupid, you'll scare away potential users, hinder the acceptance of
> the product, further fragment the community of users needing such
> functionality. Once I hit the page asking me to pay even before telling
> me what NumPy does, I went back to Numeric. Even now I can't tell in
> what way is NumPy different from Numeric or Numarray  (I understand
> that implementation wise it is different).

Really?

   http://numpy.scipy.org/new_features.html

Okay, I guess this link is indeed a few whole sentences after the mention of the 
book. And also after the link to the sample chapters which, lo and behold, 
contain even more detailed information about the changes as well as instructions 
on how to port Numeric and numarray code to numpy.

   http://numpy.scipy.org/numpybooksample.pdf

> I wish the author all the best, with the remark that in this day and
> age with the pervasive need for large scale management/analysis he
> would/could make a lot more money by fostering relationships with
> research groups (private/university)  and selling his scientific
> computing (support) expertise rather then a pdf file.

Since he is working towards tenure, working on numpy and the book is about as 
much as his tenure committee will tolerate, and that grudgingly. Selling 
consulting services in any significant amount is probably out of the question.

-- 
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