From: "Ara.T.Howard" Date: 2005-10-26T05:12:02+09:00 Subject: Re: narray and the stdlib On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, Phil Tomson wrote: > In article , > Cameron McBride wrote: >> On a ruby-core thread: >> >> (in reference to http://rcrchive.net/rcr/show/260 ) >> >> On 10/24/05, Ara.T.Howard wrote: >>> rational and complex support certainly would gain scientific users. >> >> speaking of scientific users, wouldn't something like stock NArray be >> nice in the stdlib? It's general enough to be widely useful and not >> overly complex. >> >> I can think of one argument against it, younger rubyists might reach >> for it when it's not strictly needed - thereby negating some of the >> beautiful wizardry ruby arrays and the like can do. > > Well, perhaps we could build Hal's Ruby number questionaire into the Ruby > install process and you wouldn't be allowed to use things like narray > until your Ruby number reached a certain level. ;-) > >> However, it'd >> give a nice generally available base to do some efficient heavy data >> lifting. >> > > Personally, I'd really like it if it were in the standard lib because then > I wouldn't have to install it on all the different machines I want to use > it on (Currently running simulations on a Linux box, two Solaris boxen, > and OSX). However, I think the real pushback is that the standard ruby > distro is getting rather large and adding something with the limited > appeal of narray may not be such a good idea in the effort to keep Ruby > trim. > > I don't recall if narray is available as a gem or not. As I recall the > last time I downloaded it it was not a gem. So gem-ifying narray would > probably help, although I am using a version of narray that I have > modified so it doesn't do me much good. what did you do? mine suports read/write mmap so an narray can be backed by a file and any write to the narray writes to the file - very dangerous, not reccomended, and extremely useful for tweaking a gb grid with minimal io. -a -- =============================================================================== | email :: ara [dot] t [dot] howard [at] noaa [dot] gov | phone :: 303.497.6469 | anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned. | -- h.h. the 14th dalai lama ===============================================================================