[SciPy-user] maskedarray

[Alan G Isaac]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007, "Travis E. Oliphant" apparently wrote:
> 2) The matrix object made a C-subclass (for speed). 

This will probably be the last chance for such a change,
so I again hope that consideration will be given to *one*
change in the matrix object:
iteration over a matrix should return arrays
(instead of matrices).

So if A is a matrix,
A[1] should be an array,
but A[1,:] should be a matrix.

Obviously this is an argument from design rather
than from functionality.  Current behavior is not "natural".

E.g., it makes it awkward to iterate over all elements in
the "natural" way, which I claim is::

    for row in A:
        for element in row:
            print element

This example is just meant to illustrate in a simple way 
what is "odd" about the current behavior.  (It is not meant 
to be an "argument" nor to suggest that the current absence 
simple ways to do the same thing---e.g., using A.A.)
Whenever I am working with matrices, I notice some aspect of 
this "oddity", and it is annoying when so much else is quite 
aesthetic.

Cheers,
Alan Isaac

PS For those who do not know, here is an example of the 
current behavior.  (The following prints 2 matrices instead 
of 4 elements.)

>>> A = N.mat('1 2;3 4')
>>> for row in A:
...     for element in row:
...         print element
...
[[1 2]]
[[3 4]]
>>>