[SciPy-dev] Question about 64-bit integers being cast to double precision

[Stephen Walton]

Arnd Baecker wrote:

>I also think that double should be kept as default.
>If I understand things correctly, both normal python and
>all the libraries for scipy can only deal with that at the moment.
>  
>
I respectfully disagree that double should be the default target for 
upcasts.  This is a holdover from C and was a bad decision when made for 
that language.  And, as Pearu points out, it has dire consequences for 
storage.  If I get a 16 Megapixel image from HST with two-byte integers, 
I definitely would not want that image upcast to 64 or, heaven forfend, 
128 bits the first time I did an operation on it.