On Feb 17, 2012, at 5:20 AM, John Hunter wrote: <clip> > And he has proven his ability to lead when *almost everyone* was > against him. At the height of the Numeric/numarray split, and I was > deeply involved in this as the mpl author because we had a "numerix" > compatibility layer to allow users to use one or the other, Travis > proposed writing numpy to solve both camp's problems. I really can't > remember a single individual who supported him. What I remember is > the cacophony of voices who though this was a bad idea, because of the > "third fork" problem. But Travis forged ahead, on his own, wrote > numpy, and re-united the Numeric and numarray camps. <clip>
Thanks John for including this piece of NumPy history in this context. My voice was part of the "cacophony" about the "third fork" problem back in 2005. I was pretty darn uncomfortable on the perspective of adding support for a third numerical package on PyTables. However, Travis started to work with all engines powered on, and in a few months he had built a thing that was overly better than Numeric and numarray together. The rest is history. But I remember this period (2005) as one of the most dramatic examples on how the capacity and dedication of a single individual can shape the world. -- Francesc Alted _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
