[SciPy-user] Polynomial interpolation

[Stéfan van der Walt]

On 21/04/2008, Anne Archibald <peridot.faceted at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19/04/2008, Gabriel Gellner <ggellner at uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
>  > I really like the OO design. If you continue down this route would you make the
>  >  class new style (inherit from object), and why not use properties for the
>  >  set_yi, would make it all the sweeter.
>
> Hmm. I'm lukewarm on using properties. It seems to me that if I
>  provide set_foo functions people will assume that it's not safe to
>  modify any attribute directly;

If you don't want people to use a method, start its name with an
underscore.  In most cases, set_foo isn't necessary.  Either use _foo
privately, or use foo as a property which users can manipulate.

>  More generally, it seems to me that generically, interpolation schemes
>  should produce objects which can be evaluated like functions.

Sounds good.

Talking about derivatives, does anyone know whether

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_differentiation

is of value?  It's been on my TODO list for a while, but I haven't
gotten round to studying it in detail.

Regards
Stéfan