[Numpy-discussion] Deprecating matrices.

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:54 PM, Charles R Harris
<charlesr.harris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 8:29 PM, Nathaniel Smith <njs at pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:12 PM, Charles R Harris
>> <charlesr.harris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, <josef.pktd at gmail.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>> >> How about dropping python 2 support at the same time, then we can all
>> >> be
>> >> in a @ world.
>> >>
>> >
>> > The "@" operator works with matrices already, what causes problems is
>> > the
>> > combination  of matrices with 1-D arrays. That can be fixed, I think.
>> > The
>> > big problem is probably the lack of "@" in Python 2.7. I wonder if there
>> > is
>> > any chance of getting it backported to 2.7 before support is dropped in
>> > 2020? I expect it would be a fight, but I also suspect it would not be
>> > difficult to do if the proposal was accepted. Then at some future date
>> > sparse could simply start returning arrays.
>>
>> Unfortunately the chance of Python 2.7 adding support for "@" is best
>> expressed as a denormal.
>
>
> That's what I figured ;) Hmm, matrices would work fine with the current
> combination of '*' (works for scalar muiltiplication) and '@' (works for
> matrices). So for Python3 code currently written for matrices can be
> reformed to be array compatible. But '@' for Python 2.7 would sure help...

I mean, it can just use arrays + dot(). It's not as elegant as '@',
but given that almost everyone has already switched it's clearly not
*that* bad...

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org