[SciPy-user] can basearray using somehow be tried already?

[Perry Greenfield]

On Mar 23, 2007, at 3:48 PM, Robert Kern wrote:

> Perry Greenfield wrote:
>>
>> While strictly true, there was a cool hack a while back that had
>> nearly the same effect. I forget if it was looked into and found
>> wanting for this purpose. Perhaps someone remembers if there was a
>> reason this couldn't be used (or wouldn't be considered symbolic
>> enough).
>
> What do you mean by "used"? There's no reason an individual  
> couldn't use it, no.
> It's entirely decoupled from anything else; i.e. no one else has to  
> modify
> anything in order to support it. Personally, I think the hack is  
> pretty cool,
> but its verbosity and precedence problems prevent me from actually  
> using it.
> Unfortunately, I think it simply doesn't solve the problem and  
> creates more
> magic in the process. I wouldn't want to see such pseudo-operators  
> added to
> numpy, for example.

Yes, in the sense of being a standard part of numpy (or matrix add- 
ons, etc.). Since we aren't heavy matrix users (yet anyway) it  
doesn't matter that much to us. This solution is not as good as being  
able to define new operators in Python itself. On the other hand,  
perhaps it is a better solution than having '*' have different  
meanings for different flavors of arrays. That's magic of a different  
sort, and just as prone to causing problems. So I think it is  
arguable which is worse. I agree it brings it's own set of problems.

Perry