[Numpy-discussion] feedback request: proposal to add masks to the core ndarray

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Wes McKinney <wesmckinn at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> I hope you're right. So far it seems that anyone who has spent real
> time with R (e.g. myself, Nathaniel) has expressed serious concerns
> about the masked approach.

I'm sorry - I have been distracted.  For my sake, and because this
thread has been so long, would you mind setting out again the API
differences that you think are important between array.mask and say
na-dtype?

> One big difference with R's
> approach is that we care more about performance the the R community
> does. So maybe having special NA values will be prohibitive for that
> reason.

Do you have reason to think the NA values will be slower?  I was
guessing they'd be faster, but it seems to me that there's so much
involved that we would need two implementations to test.

> Mark indeed has a fantastic track record and I've been extremely
> impressed with his NumPy work, so I've no doubt he'll do a good job. I
> just hope that you don't push aside my input-- my opinions are formed
> entirely based on my domain experience.

Yup.  The thread is long because we all have good hope that whatever
gets in and is agreed will be important and useful.

See you,

Matthew