[Python-3000] PEP 31XX: A Type Hierarchy for Numbers (and other algebraic entities) (original) (raw)

Josiah Carlson jcarlson at uci.edu
Wed Apr 25 18:03:14 CEST 2007

"Jeffrey Yasskin" <jyasskin at gmail.com> wrote:

Here's a draft of the numbers ABCs PEP. The most up to date version will live in the darcs repository at http://jeffrey.yasskin.info/darcs/PEPs/pep-3141.txt (unless the number changes) for now. Naming a PEP about numbers 3.141 seems cute, but of course, I don't get to pick the number. :) This is my first PEP, so apologies for any obvious mistakes.

I'd particularly like the numpy people's input on whether I've gotten floating-point support right. Thanks, Jeffrey Yasskin ------------------------------- PEP: 3141 Title: A Type Hierarchy for Numbers (and other algebraic entities) Version: Revision:54928Revision: 54928 Revision:54928 Last-Modified: Date:2007−04−2316:37:29−0700(Mon,23Apr2007)Date: 2007-04-23 16:37:29 -0700 (Mon, 23 Apr 2007) Date:2007−04−2316:37:29−0700(Mon,23Apr2007) Author: Jeffrey Yasskin <jyasskin at gmail.com> Status: Draft Type: Standards Track Content-Type: text/x-rst Created: 23-Apr-2007 Post-History: Not yet posted

Abstract ======== This proposal defines a hierarchy of Abstract Base Classes (ABCs) [#pep3119] to represent numbers and other algebraic entities similar to numbers. It proposes: [snip]

Are the base number operations in Python all that difficult to understand? Do we really need to add mathematical formalism into Python's type system before people understand the meaning of X * Y? Because all I really see this doing is confusing the hell out of people who aren't mathematicians; I'm a theoretical computer scientist and I had to try to think for a moment to verify that all of those were really necessary to separate the cases.

I really do understand wanting to be able to ask "is operation X supported for values Y and Z", but is this really necessary for numbers?

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