[Numpy-discussion] NumPy documentation

[Perry Greenfield]

Speaking as someone who thinks he knows what kind of effort is involved 
in creating numpy, I suspect relatively few have any idea of the effort 
and skill that is required to do what Travis has done. Indeed, I 
wouldn't be surprised if Travis hadn't fully anticipated at the start 
what he was getting himself into, and if he hasn't asked himself more 
than once whether he would do it again had he known [I imagine that 
many worthy and memorable efforts fall into this category. Much human 
progress springs out of such initial optimism.] John Hunter is right 
that Travis's contributions to this and other scipy-related projects 
amount to years of work.

For those that find it objectionable that Travis is trying to get some 
partial compensation for this work, consider whether there was any one 
at all in the Python community willing to do this as well as he as for 
free, or even for what he will actually recover from the book. I doubt 
it very much.

Fortunately, I think the number of people that object to Travis 
charging for the book is small. Unfortunately, their impact can be 
disproportionately large. I hope Travis can effectively ignore them.

Perry