Hi Karl,
Thanks for your comments.
I still think it would be a good idea to have a new type for both functional and
promotional purposes. I know that Nathan Torkington answered that perl6 will support
the requirements of PDL but I am hoping that having a new type for multidimentional
arrays lets PDL developpers freely create whichever syntax they want without worrying
that if a syntax has any other meaning in another context. Also this will increase
readibility of code. (Why do we have a new type for hashes?). And wouldn't it be
faster since clases/objects/etc. are slower than regular perl. The whole issue looks
like the regex support of perl. It needed a dedicated built in engine to have the
flexibility and speed. People say that perl character manipulation is faster than C...
And speed is much more crucial in linear algebra problems.
I think the question at this point will be that "Does perl want to target a new
audience?". Having a new type will force new books from Oreilly ("Learning Perl6") to
teach the new type in the second chapter (might be good or bad). Suppose I am a
newcomer to perl and my aim is to multiply two matrices and I don't really care about
regex's or references in perl. Currently I have to learn a lot about perl language to
begin working with matrix multiplication. This seems to me aginst the perl culture. I
know pdl is very easy to use, but how about somebody who doesn't know anything about
perl? He will have to first buy an introductory book for perl.
Even if you can solve all problems with syntax, performance, flexibility (I am not
saying these are problems, just guessing), in terms of promotion of perl in this area,
having a new type will make a difference. I know this because saying that hashes are
built in types for perl made a difference.
Thanks,
Baris.
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 25.08.2000 at 12:28 Karl Glazebrook wrote:
>Hi Baris,
>
>I agree with your sentiments. Most people in PDL DO come from the
>number crunching/scientific background.
>
>I would say that a matrix is just a special case of a general
>N-dimensional compact array which obeys various rules. PDL
>supplies a matrix-mult operator ("x") and other matrix ops.
>Note it is useful to have BOTH "x" and "*".
>
>Our goal is to get true multi-dim arrays like PDL, as you say,
>into the core. Then one would have matrices too.
>
>What the prefix should be is of course as interesting question,
>currently PDL uses $, @ could be used if overloading became possible.
>Is there a real case for a special prefix?
>
>Karl
>
>Baris Sumengen wrote:
>>
>> I am little bit confused and probably very ignorant but one thing seems to
>> me very useful. Why doesn't perl support a new data type matrix. If perl
>> wants to become a real "programming language" not just a scripting language
>> it should support number crunching internally in a more intuitive way. I
>> don't know if this is suggested before but until now the messages I read
>> mentioned only making perl arrays consistant with pdl arrays.
>etc.
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