On Feb 21, 2008, at 16:03, Travis E. Oliphant wrote: > However, I think my proposal for limited indexing capabilities > should be > considered separately from coercion behavior of NumPy scalars. NumPy > scalars are intentionally different from Python scalars, and I see > this > difference growing due to where Python itself is going. For example, > the int/long unification is going to change the ability for > numpy.int to > inherit from int.
True, but this is almost an implementation detail. What I see as more fundamental is the behaviour of Python container objects (lists, sets, etc.). If you add an object to a container and then access it as an element of the container, you get the original object (or something that behaves like the original object) without any trace of the container itself. I don't see why arrays should behave differently from all the other Python container objects - certainly not because it would be rather easy to implement. NumPy has been inspired a lot by array languages like APL or Matlab. In those languages, everything is an array, and plain numbers that would be scalars elsewhere are considered 0-d arrays. Python is not an array language but an OO language with the more general concepts of containers, sequences, iterators, etc. Arrays are just one kind of container object among many others, so they should respect the common behaviours of containers. Konrad. _______________________________________________ Numpy-discussion mailing list Numpy-discussion@scipy.org http://projects.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
