[SciPy-dev] Accessible SciPy (ASP) project

[Alan G Isaac]

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Joe Harrington apparently wrote:
> 		       Request for Comments #1


Are user comments desirable?
If so ...

i. Documentation:
make it clear what is copied under what circumstances,
e.g. why a[1][1]=2 can fail to do what a[1,1]=2 does.

ii. axes:
the current SciPy change of the default axes from
the Numeric and numarray defaults is a sure source
of confusion to new users, who are likely to be
relying on the Numeric manual supplemental SciPy guidance!
Please make SciPy adopt the Numeric and numarray
axes conventions and avoid needless confusion here.

iii. matrices:
I can see no reason for matrix objects not to
have many more attributes.  Why should a new
user look for linalg.det(A) instead of just
being able to say A.det?  Similarly for many
linear algebra actions on matrices, esp.
decompositions.  SciPy can change the packages
it relies on for these services at will, as
long as users get a stable interface in
the matrices themselves.

fwiw,
Alan Isaac