[Numpy-discussion] Future directions for SciPy in light of meeting at Berkeley

[konrad.hinsen at laposte.net]

On Mar 9, 2005, at 8:32, Travis Oliphant wrote:

> 2) Installation problems -- I'm not completely clear on what the 
> "installation problems" really are.  I hear people talk about them, 
> but Pearu has made significant strides to improve installation, so I'm 
> not sure what precise issues remain.  Yes, installing ATLAS can be a 
> pain, but scipy doesn't require it.  Yes, fortran support can be a 
> pain, but if you use g77 then it isn't a big deal.    The reality, 
> though, is that there is this perception of installation trouble and 
> it must be based on something.   Let's find out what it is.  Please 
> speak up users of the world!!!!

One more comment on this: Ease of installation depends a lot on the 
technical expertise of the people doing it. If you see SciPy as a 
package aimed at computational scientists and engineers, then you can 
indeed expect them to be able to handle some difficulties (though that 
doesn't mean that thery are willing to if the quantity of trouble is 
too high).

But for me, scientific Python packages are not only modules used by me 
in my own scripts, but also building blocks in the assembly of end-user 
applications aimed at non-experts in computation. For example, my 
DomainFinder tool (http://dirac.cnrs-orleans.fr/DomainFinder),  is used 
mostly by structural biologists. Most people in that community don't 
even know that a compiler is, so how can I expect them to install g77?

Konrad.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Hinsen
Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, CEA Saclay,
91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
Tel.: +33-1 69 08 79 25
Fax: +33-1 69 08 82 61
E-Mail: khinsen at cea.fr
---------------------------------------------------------------------