[Python-Dev] Google Summer of Code proposal: improvement of long int and adding new types/modules.

[Fernando Perez]

Hi all,

Mateusz Rukowicz wrote:

> I wish to participate in Google Summer of Code as a python developer. I
> have few ideas, what would be improved and added to python. Since these
> changes and add-ons would be codded in C, and added to python-core
> and/or as modules,I am not sure, if you are willing to agree with these
> ideas.
> 
> First of all, I think, it would be good idea to speed up long int
> implementation in python. Especially multiplying and converting
> radix-2^k to radix-10^l. It might be done, using much faster algorithms
> than already used, and transparently improve efficiency of multiplying
> and printing/reading big integers.
> 
> Next thing I would add is multi precision floating point type to the
> core and fraction type, which in some cases highly improves operations,
> which would have to be done using floating point instead.
> Of course, math module will need update to support multi precision
> floating points, and with that, one could compute asin or any other
> function provided with math with precision limited by memory and time.
> It would be also good idea to add function which computes pi and exp
> with unlimited precision.
> And last thing - It would be nice to add some number-theory functions to
> math module (or new one), like prime-tests, factorizations etc.

Sorry for pitching in late, I was away for a while.  I'd just like to point
out in the context of this discussion:

http://sage.scipy.org/sage/

SAGE is a fairly comprehensive system built on top of python to do all sorts
of research-level number theory work, from basic things up to
unpronouncable ones.  It includes wrappers to many of the major
number-theory related libraries which exist with an open-source license.

I am not commenting one way or another on your proposal, just bringing up a
project with a lot of relevance to what you are talking about.

Cheers,

f