[SciPy-user] Python's various numeric packages

[Perry Greenfield]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: scipy-user-admin at scipy.net [mailto:scipy-user-admin at scipy.net]On
> Behalf Of eric jones
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 2:19 AM
> To: scipy-user at scipy.net
> Subject: RE: [SciPy-user] Python's various numeric packages
>
> > Numeric appears to be fully operational, but no longer being developed
> > as it is being replaced eventually by numarray.  The intended time
> frame for
> > this evolution is not clear.
>
> Numarray will be the successor to Numeric.  I talked with Perry
> Greenfield from STSci at OSCON last week.  STSci is developing numarray.
> He said that pretty much the only things left before numarray is a
> "feature complete" replacement for Numeric are PyObject array support
> and Paul Dubois Masked Array (MA) classes.  He wants a full replacement
> before releasing 1.0.  I'll let him pronounce the official release
> dates, but it is not so far off.
>
No dates fixed in stone, but here is the basic plan

0.6 to be released this week, this reorganizes numarray as a package

0.7 (few weeks?) Will include PyObject support

0.8 (2 months?) Will include MA support. At this point we hope to replicate
all Numeric functionality (other than the planned changes).

v1.0 will come out when 0.8 has been tested by users for a little while
(with
perhaps a 0.9 if many changes and fixes are needed)

> Numarray and Numeric will co-exist for a long while.  Numarray is new
> and therefore less well tested.  It also has slower performance for
> small arrays by about a factor of 3, but is faster for large arrays.
> There are also many packages that rely on Numeric out in the wild, and
> the transition will be slow.
>
There may be some rough corners where performance of numarray needs
optimization
that haven't yet been handled (e.g. printing? slicing?)

> At some point, SciPy will cut over to using Numarray.  STSci folks are
> working on getting the major portions of the port to work.  The process
> and time for doing this hasn't been decided.  If it is easy to support
> both Numeric and numarray, we will.  If it isn't, we'll have to think
> hard about when and how to do the transition.
>
yep

Perry Greenfield