[Numpy-discussion] Time for beta1 of NumPy 1.0 (original) (raw)

Alan G Isaac aisaac at american.edu
Thu Jun 29 22:07:05 EDT 2006

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Travis Oliphant apparently wrote:

Please make any comments or voice major concerns

A rather minor issue, but I would just like to make sure that a policy decision was made not to move to a float default for identity(), ones(), zeros(), and empty(). (I leave aside arange().)

I see the argument for a change to be 3-fold:

  1. It is easier to introduce people to numpy if default data types are all float. (I teach, and I want my students to use numpy.)
  2. It is a better match to languages from which users are likely to migrate (e.g., GAUSS or Matlab).
  3. In the uses I am most familiar with, float is the most frequently desired data type. (I guess this may be field specific, especially for empty().)

Cheers, Alan Isaac

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