[PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] Numeric Python 1.0 Beta 2 is available

[Geoffrey Furnish]

David Ascher writes:
 > > Part of the problem is that NumPy installs its Python modules in a
 > > special subdirectory of the Python standard library. Although I like
 > > this feature, it is not strictly necessary (the subdirectory does
 > > not provide a separater "namespace"), and it causes a significant
 > > part of the installation trouble. Should we perhaps drop it for now?
 > 
 > I've found that all I need to do is to add NumPy to the main Makefile's
 > LIBSUBDIRS variable, follow the instructions in NumPy/INSTALL, and it
 > works fine.  What are the other problems? 

It all works if you follow the instructions and are willing to rebuild
your python with a modified search directroy list.  Many people have
had problems with the search path being wrong however, if they build
the extension seperately, and install the .py files under .../numpy.
Again, I regard this as a central shortcoming of Python.  The system
used in TeX/LaTeX seems a lot better to me, where directory search
paths are specified effectively as being "rooted at" some place, and
all subdirectories of that are searched.  If python worked like that,
I think many of the installation problems would go away.  However,
this really doesn't have much to do with Numpy per se, except as a
proxy for the general python extension module.

-- 
Geoffrey Furnish		email: furnish@llnl.gov
LLNL X/ICF			phone: 510-424-4227	fax: 510-423-0925

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