Re: [pygame] 3D SHMUP

[Lenard Lindstrom <len-l@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for fielding this Miriam. Your account is pretty much how I 
understand it. I have found a history of the various incarnations of the 
array module here:

http://www.scipy.org/History_of_SciPy

Miriam English wrote:
> Ian Mallett wrote:
> > On 9/16/07, *Lenard Lindstrom* <len-l@xxxxxxxxx 
> > <mailto:len-l@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> >
> >     NumPy is not the same as Numeric. As long as you are using a 32 bit
> >     machine you can compile Numeric for Python 2.5.
> >
> > I thought so.  I've heard things about development on Numeric had 
> > stopped, and was therefore dead?
>
> The whole Numeric/numarray/NumPy screwup makes my brain explode. I 
> keep getting it all mixed up and I expect I'm not the only one.
>
> I think this is how it goes (I might be wrong on some of this):
>
> They are all, as far as I can see almost the same thing, with slight 
> changes, the main result of which, is to break stuff.
>
> #  numarray has been pretty-much dropped.
Like Numeric, it is being replaced with NumPy.

> #  Numeric was the original, which was upgraded to numarray, but then 
> the old Numeric was re-upgraded to be a better version and released as 
> Numeric again. There are moves to have this dropped.
Numeric did not meet the requirements for inclusion in the Python 
Standard Library. Numarray was written as a replacement. Though fast 
with large arrays it proved slower than Numeric for small arrays.

> #  NumPy was (I think) yet another rewrite of Numeric. It upset a lot 
> of people by having some of the documentation released non-free, but 
> there is considerable pressure to make this the main version. Nowadays 
> there is quite a bit of free documentation for NumPy available.
NumPy is an updated Numeric, like Python 3.0 is to Python 2.x. It breaks 
things but is not a complete rewrite. It incorporates features from 
numarray as well. The name NumPy was also associated with Numeric in the 
past. How is that for confusing?

>   http://www.scipy.org/Documentation
>   http://www.scipy.org/doc/numpy_api_docs/numpy.html
>   http://docs.neuroinf.de/api/numpy/
>   http://www.scipy.org/Numpy_Example_List_With_Doc
>   http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/numpy/wiki/
>
> The main problem is that even if NumPy is used forever more it doesn't 
> help all the old programs out there that used numeric. This problem 
> will become less annoying given the passage of time. My solution has 
> been to install both Numeric and NumPy. For those using Python 2.5 
> René Dudfield has made a precompiled version available:
> http://rene.f0o.com/~rene/stuff/Numeric-24.2.win32-py2.5.exe
>
> For all else go to the Sourceforge pages:
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1369
>
> Hope this helps. If I got any of this wrong can someone correct me 
> please? I'm still pretty confused about the whole thing, and part of 
> my motivation for writing this was to help straighten it out in my own 
> mind.


--
Lenard Lindstrom
<len-l@xxxxxxxxx>