[Numpy-discussion] Request for advice: project to get NumPy working in IronPython

[Travis E. Oliphant]

>> An IronPython compatible version of NumPy would be great.    Of course 
>> it could be done by using C# to write NumPy, but I'm not sure that this 
>> would really be any less work than creating a "glue" layer that allowed 
>> most (or all) C-Python extensions to work with IronPython.
>>     
I'm curious about why all the discussion is about putting Python and its 
extensions on top of C# and very little discussion about just using 
C#-based tools as an extension from CPython.

Python .NET is a great example of what I'm referring to.

The C# language and the CLR does solve some problems, but it does not 
solve all the problems related to scientific computing that it could.   
In particular, I wish it's cross-platform visibility where higher.  Mono 
is a great start, but there are a lot of C# libraries that just don't 
get made to work on Linux or Mac OS X.

The task of moving scipy to sit on top of the CLR seems rather large 
without some automatic tool to allow calling CPython extensions from the 
CLR that works in a cross-platform way.

I don't really see the benefit that the CLR offers (unless all the hype 
is just so you can write code that runs in a browser --- in which case, 
are you really going to run matrix inversion on the CLR in a browser?)

How does legacy code interact with the "magic" of the CLR?

What are people's opinions about the value of NumPy and SciPy on the CLR?

-Travis O.