[Numpy-discussion] Re: numpy, overflow, inf, ieee, and rich comparison

[Charles Boncelet]

Konrad Hinsen wrote:

>
> In my experience, people who start programming expect the arithmetic
> of any programming language to work like the pocket calculators they
> are used to. Which means they expect 2/3 to be a reasonable
> approximation to its true (rational) value, accepting roundoff
> problems.
>

This is undoubtably correct.

But (donning my contrarian hat), while appealing to newcomers
is a laudable goal, Python will die if it does not appeal to serious
programmers writing serious code.  The CS world is littered with
dead teaching languages (anyone remember PLC?).  IMHO, the
right question to ask is "what do serious programmers want?"


--
Charles Boncelet                              302-831-8008
Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering   302-831-4316 (fax)
University of Delaware                        boncelet at eecis.udel.edu
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~boncelet/