Matlab vs Python (was RE: Discussion: Introducing new operators for matrix computation)
Johann Hibschman
johann at physics.berkeley.edu
Mon Jul 17 23:26:51 EDT 2000
Charles Boncelet writes:
>> - that many problems can be reduced to matrix operations is
>> a non-argument, since the same is true of functional/
>> procedural/oo/predicate programming.
> I agree, but there is a big userbase waiting for an alternative
> to the $$ Matlab.
Octave is already there as a free alternative, so I doubt python will
attract many of those people.
Personally, I find that the matrix-orientation of Matlab makes it
harder to get things done. I more often have 3 or higher dimensional
arrays than I have plain old 2D matrices, so I'd rather see the more
general Numeric Python syntax than any over-specialized matrix code.
When you're contracting a 4-tensor with a vector, you almost need an
index-based notation.
As it is, the only things missing from NumPy is an easy spelling of
matrix-matrix multiplication, and if you really need that, you can
just define your own class to do it.
--
Johann Hibschman johann at physics.berkeley.edu
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