Link to the PEP: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0535/
On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 8:52 AM Angus Hollands <goose...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > PEP 535 was deferred until Python 3.8. I would like to discuss the PEP > given that some time has passed, and I _personally_ would benefit from its > acceptance. > > > ## A little about me: > As a reasonably long-time Python user (well, 16 years), I have gradually > moved from using only the core language to working within the DSLs (NumPy > et al.) of the Scientific Python ecosystem. Most recently, I've been using > Awkward Arrray (https://github.com/scikit-hep/awkward-1.0), which > generalises the regular NumPy array programming paradigm into "jagged" data > structures, and was initially aimed at the High Energy Physics (HEP) > domain. > > > ## TL;DR of the PEP's Motivations: > Various aspects of NumPy's API have become a "lingua-franca" in the > Scientific Python domain, such as strongly-overloaded index operations. One > such overload allows "mask arrays" — arrays with boolean entries > corresponding to a per-element mask — to select a subset of the array. > These mask arrays are conveniently built from the rich comparison operators > that Python supports, e.g. > ```python > x = np.array(...) > y = x[(2 < x) & (x < 8)] > ``` > > As discussed in PEP 535, the limitation on comparison chaining (namely > that it is not possible for rich comparisons) makes the above syntax more > clunky than it might otherwise be. The main repercussion of this limitation > is lower readability: > - operator precedence of bitwise and/or requires a reasonable number of > parentheses ( > https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#operator-precedence) > - repetition of the rich-object (array) > > With PEP 535 (and the necessary library changes), this would look more like > ```python > x = np.array(...) > y = x[2 < x < 8] > ``` > This is already well described in the PEP, so I'll leave the example there! > > > ## Community Survey > The Oct 2020 Python Developers Survey ( > https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/python-developers-survey-2020/) suggests > that 62% of respondents use NumPy. Additionally, 37% of respondents list > "Simple syntax, syntactic sugar, easy to learn" and 30% list "Easy to write > & read code, high-level language" amongst their three most liked features > in the Python language (to clarify, these answers may overlap by > respondent!) > > >From these results, I would make a tentative case that this PEP would > have a reasonable impact on the Python community, given that libraries > benefitting from this proposal (e.g. NumPy) are used by a "majority" of > those surveyed. > > > ## Conclusion > This is a bit of a long opener to this list (apologies!). Is there any > interest in pushing this PEP along? > > Thanks, > Angus Hollands > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list -- python-dev@python.org > To unsubscribe send an email to python-dev-le...@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-dev.python.org/ > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev@python.org/message/ET7BPR57Q6MT6TUG4SXPSALRC3P3ZY35/ > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ >
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