[SciPy-dev] Re: Numeric 3 status

[Travis Oliphant]

Eric Jonas wrote:

>>I forgot to let you know in my previous email, that I would be very, 
>>very pleased to receive help on scipy.base.   There is a great deal of 
>>opportunity for people to get involved and assist with the formation of 
>>a solid scipy.base.   I listed a few areas in my previous email, but I'm 
>>sure I forgot some things.
>>    
>>
>
>Well, I have an undergraduate working with me with some decent C and
>python experience and an interest in numerical computing; we've
>downloaded the latest from the SF CVS Numeric3 module and are going to
>start looking over things; are there any mailing lists or other
>recommended sources of information? As the person in charge of all of
>this, is there some area you'd prefer for us to get started on ? We'd
>love to help you get this all working this summer...
>	       ...Eric
>  
>

I forgot to mention that there are a couple of other projects that are 
more Python-related that would also be important long term and could 
easily be handled by an undergraduate:

1) Changing Python pickle code so that a buffer object can be pickled 
directly (without first copying to a string).
   -- It would be nice to have a better buffer object which has been 
discussed ad nausem on python-dev, but this simple addition  
       would add a great deal of functionality.
   -- It might be coupled with a way to get an empty buffer object from 
Python (i.e.)  buffer(1024) would construct an empty writeable buffer
       of 1024 bytes (you can do this with the Python C-API, but it is 
not exposed to the Python Interpreter).

2) Adding the __asindex__ method (and equivalent C call) to Python 
objects so that arbitrary objects can be used to slice Python sequences 
instead of only integers being allowed as is currently the case.


Both of these projects are important to the long term success of Numeric 
computing on Python and would have positive impact on the entire Python 
community.  

It is important that somebody takes these on as soon as possible.

Thanks,

-Travis