[Numpy-discussion] NumPy 1.12.0 release

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 5:56 AM, Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Charles R Harris wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I'm pleased to announce the NumPy 1.12.0 release. This release supports
>> Python 2.7 and 3.4-3.6. Wheels for all supported Python versions may be
>> downloaded from PiPY
>> <https://pypi.python.org/pypi?%3Aaction=pkg_edit&name=numpy>, the tarball
>> and zip files may be downloaded from Github
>> <https://github.com/numpy/numpy/releases/tag/v1.12.0>. The release notes
>> and files hashes may also be found at Github
>> <https://github.com/numpy/numpy/releases/tag/v1.12.0> .
>>
>> NumPy 1.12.0rc 2 is the result of 418 pull requests submitted by 139
>> contributors and comprises a large number of fixes and improvements. Among
>> the many improvements it is difficult to  pick out just a few as standing
>> above the others, but the following may be of particular interest or
>> indicate areas likely to have future consequences.
>>
>> * Order of operations in ``np.einsum`` can now be optimized for large
>> speed improvements.
>> * New ``signature`` argument to ``np.vectorize`` for vectorizing with core
>> dimensions.
>> * The ``keepdims`` argument was added to many functions.
>> * New context manager for testing warnings
>> * Support for BLIS in numpy.distutils
>> * Much improved support for PyPy (not yet finished)
>>
>> Enjoy,
>>
>> Chuck
>
> I've installed via pip3 on linux x86_64, which gives me a wheel.  My
> question is, am I loosing significant performance choosing this pre-built
> binary vs. compiling myself?  For example, my processor might have some more
> features than the base version used to build wheels.

I guess you are thinking about using this built wheel on some other
machine?   You'd have to be lucky for that to work; the wheel depends
on the symbols it found at build time, which may not exist in the same
places on your other machine.

If it does work, the speed will primarily depend on your BLAS library.

The pypi wheels should be pretty fast; they are built with OpenBLAS,
which is at or near top of range for speed, across a range of
platforms.

Cheers,

Matthew