[Numpy-discussion] numpy and C99

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 09:47:58AM -0600, Charles R Harris wrote:
>    However, I think some code, say loops.c.src, looks better in C than it
>    would in cython. C is a rather nice language for that sort of thing. OTOH,
>    the ufunc_object.c code might look better in cython. In general, I think a
>    separation between pure C code and python interface code would be the way
>    to go, with the latter written in cython.

I have some demand in house to be able to use the C parts of numpy for C.
Say for instance you are coding a Python library, with a C-optimized
Monte-Carlo sampler. Linking to the C code of randomkit is very useful
for this. Right now the only way to do this is to copy the randomkit
source and to ship it with your libary, however, hopefully, this will
change in the long run.

So I guess this is a +1 to keep some core numerical functionality in C,
most probably for ABI reasons.

My 2 cents,

Gaël