Re: [Visualpython-users] 5.11 version for 32 bit Ubuntu Jaunty (and some fixes)

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

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It's good that you provide two versions, but there's an informational
problem for someone trying to figure out the ramifications of which to
use.<br>
<br>
There aren't just two sides to this; there are more like four sides.
Sides 3 and 4 are these:<br>
<br>
3) There exists a large body of existing VPython programs developed
over the last 9 years that various constituencies depend on working,
and removing the numpy and math imports will break many (most?) of
these. Many of these users are students and faculty who cannot be
easily reached to explain a major change; they don't read computer
lists.<br>
<br>
4) There is a tricky point concerning mathematical functions that
appear in both math and numpy. When Arthur Siegel did the work to
convert Visual from dependence on Numeric to dependence on numpy,
performance on many existing programs was horrible, because numpy
scalar floats, unlike Numeric scalar floats, were no longer captured by
the fast math functions but instead were processed by the
array-handling numpy functions. There is arcane code in Visual to get
around this problem. Few users would be able to figure this out for
themselves.<br>
<br>
Bruce Sherwood<br>
<br>
Guy K. Kloss wrote:
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  <pre wrap="">Hold your horses there ...

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:52:11 Bruce Sherwood wrote:
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    <pre wrap="">Warning: I do not accept the notion of removing the full importation of
numpy and math without vastly more discussion.
    </pre>
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That's why that package is provided *additionally*, but the basic one is given 
first on that page.

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    <pre wrap="">There were and are good
reasons for the existing scheme, and changing this will break existing
programs right and left, programs that large numbers of people depend
on. Most of these people are students and instructors who aren't working
on Linux, so there's little immediate danger. And I accept that for some
advanced users cleaning the name space can be useful. But it should be
understood that this is for "consenting adults." My concern is that it
could be very difficult for someone who is not expert to be able to
figure out what has gone wrong.
    </pre>
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  <pre wrap=""><!---->
Yes, so can be the difficulty trying to figure out why the code is all of a 
sudden behaving erratically, although you did everything the way you usually 
do in Python.

There are strong arguments for both sides. The one to make it easier, and the 
one to keep it in a Pythonic way. And after all, the ones using it are using 
Python, so that's the common denominator one should adhere to. And telling 
them to do a wild card import should be easy as anyway, if they want it to be 
simple but messy.

Guy

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