[SciPy-user] Re: [Numpy-discussion] numarray interface and performance issues (for dot product and transpose)

[John J. Lee]

On 28 Feb 2002, A.Schmolck wrote:

> Two important drawbacks of Numeric (python) compared to Matlab
> currently seem to be the plotting functionality and the availability
> of specialist libraries (say for pattern recognition problems etc.).
> However python seems to be quickly catching up in this area (e.g.
> scipy and other projects are bustling with activity and, as far as I
> know, there is currently a promising undergraduate project on the way
> at my university to provide powerful plotting facilities for python).

http://www.bel-epa.com/pyapache/Python/gdmodule/gdmodule-1.0/doc/

some quick matlab graph-alike thing, don't know if any good, haven't used
it

I don't much like any of the graphing stuff either, but it's worth looking
carefully: there are quite a few Python-accessible packages around that
you may not have noticed: plotutils, gnuplot, dislin, Qwt/Qt, BLT/Pmw,
Grace, Scigraphica, PGPLOT, PLPLOT, the scipy stuff, probably many others
(not to mention 3D library wrappers, and image processing stuff, none of
which I use).  None of them are wonderful, but they all have their
strengths.  I use a simple interface to use Qwt, Grace and gnuplot from
the same Python code, so I can plot stuff in my GUI, then interactive
fiddling about in Grace or run off a postscript plot with gnuplot -- works
well for me but certainly not ideal.

> There is however a problem that, for the use to which I want to put Numeric,
> runs deeper and provides me with quite a headache:
>
> Two essential matrix operations (matrix-multiplication and transposition
> (which is what I am mainly using) are both considerably
>
> a) less efficient and

I think someone has already done some ATLAS work with numpy...

> b) less notationally elegant

http://matpy.sourceforge.net/

-- not seen any activity for 6 months, but you might find some useful
stuff there.



John