[Numpy-discussion] Status of Numeric

[verveer at embl.de]

Just my 2 cents on the issue of replacing Numeric by Numarray: 
 
I was under the impression that Numarray was intended to be a replacement for 
Numeric, also as a building block for larger packages such as SciPy. Was 
Numarray not intended to be an "improved Numeric" in the first place? I chose 
to develop for Numarray rather than Numeric because of its improvements, under 
the assumption that eventually my code would also become available to the 
users of such packages as SciPy. (I wrote the nd_image extension that is now 
distributed with Numarray. I also contributed some improvements to RandomArray 
extension that are not in the Numeric version.) 
 
I believe that it would be a bad situation if the numerical python community 
would be split among two different array packages. (I think Paul Dubois 
expressed a similar sentiment on comp.lang.python). Supporting code for two  
incompatible packages would be a pain (I am personally not willing to do 
that). Not being able to use modules designed for one package in the other 
would be disappointing for many people, I think... 
 
If I understood well, the only issue with Numarray seems to be that the speed 
for handling small arrays is too low. So would it not be more efficient to 
focus on that problem rather than throwing away all the excellent work that 
has been done already on Numarray? 
 
Best regards, Peter 
 
-- 
Dr. Peter J. Verveer 
Cell Biology and Cell Biophysics Programme 
European Molecular Biology Laboratory 
Meyerhofstrasse 1 
D-69117 Heidelberg 
Germany