[SciPy-dev] [announce] scikits.sparse v0.1, wrapper for CHOLMOD (and hopefully more)

[James Bergstra]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 11:42 AM, Robert Cimrman <cimrman3 at ntc.zcu.cz> wrote:
> In this case, the issue could be side-stepped by replacing the specialized
> functions, e.g. all Factor.solve_*() by a single function, e.g. Factor.solve(
> ..., mode='A') with a 'mode' argument. What do you think? Typing
> Factor.solve_P(b) or Factor.solve(b, 'P')
> seems of the same complexity/readability to me.

FWIW, Factor.solve_P can be tab-completed, whereas Factor.solve(b, 'P') cannot.
Also, the second form suggests [to me] that any letter or string could
go in place of 'P'.  I presume from the two options that actually
there are just a few constants that make sense instead of 'P', but
that wouldn't be clear from the second form alone.

Maybe the sense of a cluttered interface can be addressed by better
formatting of the docs (??)

James
-- 
http://www-etud.iro.umontreal.ca/~bergstrj