[Python-ideas] real numbers with SI scale factors

[Nick Coghlan]

On 29 August 2016 at 19:08, Ken Kundert <python-ideas at shalmirane.com> wrote:
> Also the interactive environments, such as ipython, need to
> adapt. The more this occurs, the better life gets for scientists and engineers.

This theory of change is backwards - we follow IPython and Project
Jupyter when it comes to understanding what's a desirable UX for
scientists (primarily) and engineers (somewhat), rather than the other
way around. (Ditto for SciPy and Numpy for the computational
requirements side of things - in addition to the already referenced
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0465/ for matrix multiplication,
there's also https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0357/ which defined
the __index__ protocol, and https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3118/
which defined a rich C-level protocol for shaped data export. Even
before there was a PEP process, extended slicing and the Ellipsis
literal were added for the benefits of folks writing multidimensional
array indexing libraries)

So if your aim is to make a "scientists & engineers will appreciate
it" UX argument, then you're unlikely to gain much traction here if
you haven't successfully made that argument in the Project Jupyter
and/or SciPy ecosystems first - if there was a popular "%%siunits"
cell magic, or a custom Project Jupyter kernel that added support for
SI literals, we'd be having a very different discussion (and you
wouldn't feel so alone in making the case for the feature).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia