Scientific Computing with NumPy

[Travis E. Oliphant]

Tim Hochberg wrote:
> mclaugb wrote:
> 
> 
> No, Scientific Python is "a collection of Python modules that are useful 
> for scientific computing" written by Konrad Hinsen. I'm not a user, but 
> you can find information here:
> 
> 	http://starship.python.net/~hinsen/ScientificPython/
> 
> SciPy is, I believe, a more recent and more ambitious project. In any 
> event it is not directly related to ScientficPython. Information here:
> 

SciPy's been around since 2001.  ScientificPython since about 1998, I 
think.

> Numeric: This is the origingal array package.
> 
> Numarray: This was written as a replacement for Numeric. It has improved 
> performance for large arrays. The internals were also simplified and 
> many other improvements were made (arrays were subclassable, numeric 
> signal handling vastly improved, etc). Unfortunately, a side effect of 
> the changes was that small array performance got worse. There was a 
> signifigant chunk of the numeric community for whom this was a deal 
> breaker and as a result there ended up being a split between the Numeric 
> and Numarray communities.

Just to be clear, small array performance was only 1 of the 
"deal-breaker" problems with numarray.  Anothber big problem for SciPy 
was that the Numeric C-API was never fully supported (in particular the 
Ufunc C-API).  This made it more difficult to convert to numarray. 
Thus, porting never happened.  The small-array speed issue just made 
porting that much less enticing.

> 
> Numpy: This is a rewrite of Numeric that incorporates most of the 
> improvements in Numarray. 

The goal is to incorporate *all* of the improvements (unless being 
written in Python is one of the improvements).  If there are missing 
improvements we need to know about them.


Thanks to Tim for spreading some light on the issue.  There will no 
doubt be continued confusion for new users over the coming months. 
Hopefully, with time the confusion will fade as more people use NumPy 
and any remainging issues get resolved.

-Travis