[Python-ideas] [RFC] draft PEP: Dedicated infix operators for matrix multiplication and matrix power

[Guido van Rossum]

Also complex numbers were Jim Hugunin's request for numeric work.

On Saturday, March 15, 2014, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 16 March 2014 06:50, Alexander Belopolsky
> <alexander.belopolsky at gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > Abstractly, 1-dimensional arrays are neither columns nor rows, but
> Python's
> > horizontal notation makes them more row-like than column-like.  In
> > 2-dimensional case, [[1,2]] is a row-vector and [[1],[2]] is a
> > column-vector.  Which one is more "natural"?
>
> Folks, please stop trying to argue this one in the abstract. The
> decision will likely be made primarily based on the feedback of folks
> that have *actually been using and teaching* Python as a tool for
> matrix manipulation (etc) for more than a decade.
>
> Guido has asked them to have that discussion and summarise their
> conclusions in the PEP - we can lob our armchair opinions into the mix
> after the experts have spoken.
>
> This won't be the first time features have been added to the language
> core specifically for the benefit of the numeric community - the
> ellipsis notation and extended slicing in general were added for their
> benefit years ago (I started getting involved in Python core
> development around Python 2.3, just as the core sequence types were
> being updated to support extended slicing, and being able to use
> "s[::-1]" with lists, strings, etc was a novel concept).
>
> Regards,
> Nick.
>
> --
> Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com <javascript:;>   |   Brisbane,
> Australia
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-- 
--Guido van Rossum (on iPad)
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