[SciPy-dev] Renaming scipy_core ???

[Charles R Harris]

On 1/1/06, Ed Schofield <schofield at ftw.at> wrote:
>
>
> On 01/01/2006, at 11:58 PM, Fernando Perez wrote:
>
> > Travis Oliphant wrote:
> >
> >> sci (arrlab, scicore)/
> >
> > I'm +0.5 on scicore: I think it emphasizes the fact that this
> > constitutes the
> > necessary core functionality for scipy, without any of the current
> > confusion
> > problems.  The following is a little experiment, to see how a blurb
> > would read
> > (remove the weave reference as needed).  Feel free to s/scicore/
> > your_favorite/
> > to see how it would read:
> >
> > """scicore is a package for array-based numerical computing in Python.
> >
> > It provides a collection of modules useful for a wide variety of
> > numerical
> > tasks, similar in spirit to the basic functionality of systems such
> > as Matlab
> > or IDL.  At its center is a flexible array type which can be very
> > useful even
> > for non-scientific tasks that interface with arrays in C libraries.
> >
> > The scicore package consists of:
> >
> >    - ndarray: a package exposing a flexible datatype to efficiently
> > manipulate
> > n-dimensional arrays.  Such objects are implemented as C extensions
> > and
> > support array element-wise arithmetic and other mathematical
> > operations.
> > While they are conceptually similar to the arrays of languages like
> > Fortran90,
> > they are in fact much more capable objects, as their contents can
> > consist of
> > arbitrary python objects and they have very rich indexing, data
> > access and
> > low-level maninpulation capabilities.
> >
> >    - f2py: ...
> >
> >
> > The scicore package can be installed on any standard python
> > distribution, and
> > it has no other dependencies for installation than Python itself
> > (and a C
> > compiler for a source-based install, as there is extension code in
> > it).  At
> > runtime, some of its components do require the presence of
> > compilers (f2py
> > needs a Fortran compiler, while weave needs a C++ one), but these
> > are not
> > needed unless you explicitly import and use f2py or weave.
> >
> >
> > The scipy package builds on top of scicore, to expose a large
> > collection of
> > algorithms and libraries for many tasks in scientific computing.
> > scipy wraps
> > many well-known and field-tested Fortran and C libraries, as well
> > as providing
> >   new routines written both in C and in Python.
> > """
> >
> > Just a little experiment in language :)
> >
> >> ->numpy (ndarray, narray)/
> >
> > -1 on 'numpy': if at some point in the future this is considered a
> > candidate
> > for the stdlib, I don't think we want anything with a 'py' suffix
> > in the
> > package name (not a single module in the stdlib ends in 'py' today,
> > except for
> > 'copy').
> >
> > I also don't want to have to explain to anybody "well, this isn't
> > really the
> > old numpy, it's the new numpy, which was written by the guy who was
> > maintaining the old numpy, but it's a new code, and it also has
> > features from
> > numarray, so it's like the old numpy + numarray + better, but it's
> > called
> > numpy again.  Easy, no?"  Really, I don't.
> >
> > +1 on 'ndarray', because it emphasizes the fact that these are
> > generic,
> > very flexible (esp. with all the recent enhancements) N-dimensional
> > data
> > structures.  In that sense, 'narray' has a stronger hint of 'n for
> > numbers',
> > while Travis has shown that these objects can be much more than
> > traditional
> > Fortran-type arrays.
> >
> > I also think ndarray goes well as an extension to the 'array'
> > module in the
> > stdlib.  They are, after all, conceptually close.
> >
>
> I'm with Fernando on this, for all the same reasons. So:
> +1 on 'ndarray' for the basic array module.
> +1 on 'scicore' for the whole package.
>
> And ...
> +1 on moving weave to scipy, to keep scicore lean and mean ;)
>
>
> -- Ed


There seems to be a consensus developing. So

+1 on 'ndarray' for the basic array module.
+1 on 'scicore' for the whole package.

And ...
+1 on moving weave to scipy.

Chuck
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