[SciPy-dev] dot() and the fate of matrixmultiply()

[Neilen Marais]

Hi

With the recent API cleanup in numpy SVN, it seems matrixmultiply() has
been removed. I know that dot() does the same thing, but I prefer to use
matrixmultiply() since it makes my code easier to understand. Whenever I
read dot() I think only of the inner product of two vectors. Also, I'd
expect dot() to be a commutative operation, which matrix multiplication
is not.

Can I make an appeal for matrixmultiply()'s life?

I can offer some anecdotal evidence in support for matrixmultiply()'s
life: I was a tutor at the recent Py4Science workshop held at
Stellenbosch  (http://mentat.za.net/py4science/). It was fairly well
attended by mathematicians and applied mathematicians, and while they
were for the most part well impressed with Python/NumPy/SciPy I heard
several of them mutter: "But it's not dot! Dot is for vectors!" when we
were doing an example that involved matrix multiplication. I rather
identify with them :)

Regards
Neilen