[Python-Dev] Matrix product (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Fri Aug 1 23:57:04 CEST 2008

Fernando Perez wrote: re http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0225/

I am hereby volunteering to try to organize a BOF session at the conference on this topic, and can come back later with the summary. I'm also scheduled to give a talk at BayPiggies on Numpy/Scipy soon after the conference, so that may be a good opportunity to have some further discussions in person with some of you. ... So if this idea sounds agreeable to python-dev, I'd need to know whether I should propose the BOF using pep 225 as a starting point, or if there are any other considerations on the matter I should be aware of (I've read this thread in full, but I just want to start on track since the BOF is a one-shot event). I'll obviously post this on the numpy/scipy mailing lists so those not coming to the conference can participate, but an all-hands BOF is an excellent opportunity to collect feedback and ideas from the community that is likely to care most about this feature.

When I read this some years ago, I was impressed by the unifying concept of operations on elements versus objects. And rereading, I plan to use the concept in writing about computation with Python. But implementing even half of the total examples with operator syntax rather than functions seemed a bit revolutionary and heavy. I am not sure I would want the number of special methods nearly doubled. On the other hand, there is something to be said for orthogonality.

That said, I am curious what working scientists using Python think.

tjr

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