[SciPy-user] Python's various numeric packages

[Colin J. Williams]

Is there some place where there is an overview of the various
packages, their relationships and their present stages of development?

I have downloaded SciPy: SciPy-0.2.0_alpha_202.4187.win32-py2.1.exe
The install fails.
It does not permit the install directory to be entered.  It does not 
detect the
registered (XP) Python installation to suggest site-packages as a likely
install directory.

Does SciPy depend on Numeric?

Numeric appears to be fully operational, but no longer being developed 
as it is
being replaced eventually by numarray.  The intended time frame for this
evolution is not clear.

numarray appears to be largely operable, but speed problems have been 
reported.
NDArray and NumArray are the basic classes of numarray, but the design 
decision
seems to have been made to deprecate the use of class methods in favour of
factory functions.  This appears to inhibit the development of 
sub-classes to
NumArray.

MatPy is an effort to facilitate matrix operations.  It seems to have 
resulted from
a lot of work by Huaiyu Zhu.  An extended discussion took place during 2000
to 2001, but there seems to be little current interest.

The project was originally based on Numeric, but appears to be in 
transition to
numarray.  Again, the decision to use factory functions, rather than 
exploiting
the full capability of the Python class structure, appears to hav been made.

Source Forge advertises the availability of version 0.4 as a downloadable
Win 32 package, but it seems to have regressed to version 0.3.

I would appreciate any advice.

Colin W.