Robert makes his case clearly and persuasively. Without pretending to challenge his argument in any way, I would just like to clarify what is at issue for some of the teaching crowd (or for me in any case).
- Get up and running very quickly even with students who lack a programming background. This means having rand() and randn() in the top-level namespace is nice, since I use them early and often. - Avoid confusion and frustration. This is the basis for having a "consistent" calling convention for array constructors (pace Robert's arguments about consistency). On Tue, 11 Jul 2006, Robert Kern apparently wrote: > And mark my words, if we make rand() polymorphic, we will > get just as many newbies coming to the list asking why > ones(3, 4) doesn't work. That is plausible. If polymorphism is chosen for rand() and randn(), I suppose I would address this by documenting the current API as present for backwards compatability only. That allows a quick answer, but perhaps does not preclude the questions. Cheers, Alan Isaac ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Numpy-discussion mailing list Numpy-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/numpy-discussion
