Scientific Libraries in Python

[Travis Oliphant]

>
> A minor aesthetic point: Konrad is sitting dead on top of the most
> Pythonic part of the namespace for this domain. When you type
>
> from Scientific import Foo
>
> you know what you're getting and where it's coming from, for much the same
> reasons that Numeric is named, well, Numeric instead of numpy. Two of the
> minor side benefits from merging Scientific Python into SciPy (note the
> order) would be that SciPy could finally use a decent top-level package
> name <0.3875 wink> and it could stop smooshing together the two words in
> its name. Doesn't Scientific.Compiler sound much better? (:


Please expand what you mean by all of this.   I'm not sure I understand
your concern with the package design of scipy.

>
> It's a pity the issue isn't just aesthetics (which I could cheerfully
> ignore), but useability. The merge is worth doing because having a single
> Scientific Python library will give more and richer functionality, with
> less hassle, to scientists and engineers using Python. With the current
> state of affairs, I can't really make the case to my colleagues here (or
> anywhere) to use Python instead of Matlab or Mathematica.

We are trying to get there.  Please make your voice heard on the scipy
list.  One of the design decisions that has been made is to use all
lowercase letters for names in the package to improve consistency.

Am I hearing that you don't like the top-level name "scipy"

What is wrong with

from scipy.signal import convolve

which is what can currently be done.

Glad to see the dicussion,

-Travis Oliphant