[Numpy-discussion] New NEP: merging multiarray and umath

[Charles R Harris]

On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 2:52 AM, Gregor Thalhammer <
gregor.thalhammer at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> long time ago I wrote a wrapper to to use optimised and parallelized math
> functions from Intels vector math library
> geggo/uvml: Provide vectorized math function (MKL) for numpy
> <https://github.com/geggo/uvml>
>
> I found it useful to inject (some of) the fast methods into numpy via
> np.set_num_ops(), to gain more performance without changing my programs.
>

I think that was much of the original motivation for `set_num_ops` back in
the Numeric days, where there was little commonality among platforms and
getting hold of optimized libraries was very much an individual thing. The
former cblas module, now merged with multiarray, was present for the same
reasons.


>
> While this original project is outdated, I can imagine that a centralised
> way to swap the implementation of math functions is useful. Therefor I
> suggest to keep np.set_num_ops(), but admittedly I do not understand all
> the technical implications of the proposed change.
>

I suppose we could set it up to detect and use an external library during
compilation. The CBLAS implementations currently do that and should pick up
the MKL version when available. Where are the MKL functions you used
presented? That is an admittedly lower level interface, however.

Chuck
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