[Python-Dev] Introducing new operators for matrix computation

[Greg Stein]

On Fri, Jul 14, 2000 at 02:30:13PM +0800, Favas, Mark (EM, Floreat) wrote:
> Speaking as a research scientist with my computational
> chemistry/visualization hat down around my ears, I'd certainly welcome such
> operators, as would a couple of my colleagues to whom I introduced Python.
> One was a heavy user of Sather until the steam went out of it, then C++ for
> a time, now Python+NumPy - and loving it! A set of matrix operators would
> expand Python's sphere of use - scientists process numbers as well as
> text...

We can always gain new users by adding domain-specific operators. Take that
to the extreme, though, and you'll have a mess of complicated operators that
don't create a unified whole, that don't work well across various types, and
are hard to understand for the majority of users.

What then? Well, you *lose* users. Gain the domain-specific, lose the rest.

New users are great. Adding complexity to gain them is counter-productive
from a longer term viewpoint.

Cheers,
-g

p.s. and allowing user-programmable syntax? you're truly kidding, right?

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/