Back in the game: Numerics in D

[Don]

Norbert Nemec wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> just to say "Hi" to those that might still remember my name from the 
> good ol' times. (I just checked - I actually sent 464 messages to this 
> list from 2004 to 2006 and none since.)

Hi! I certainly haven't forgotten you.

> I am currently considering to apply for an academic research fellowship 
> that would allow me to work full time on the development of a numerical 
> library for D. The core of this work would be the implementation of 
> multi-dimensional numerical arrays and array expressions similar to what 
> NumPy does in Python. It would remain to be seen how much can be done as 
> a library and what should be done at a language level.

That would be pretty cool.

  Ultimately, I
> believe D could achive support for numerical programming with the 
> comfort, simplicity and expressiveness of Python and the performance of 
> Fortran.

I have no doubt that that's true.

I also believe we are close to being able to implement it.
Note that a few more pieces have been put into place since you were last 
here. The new operator overloading scheme will be in place in the next 
release, which will radically simplify the existing opIndex() mess.
See also this patch:

http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3474

This is mentioned in Andrei's book, so it should appear a few compiler 
releases from now.

> In any case, I would really love to see a strong community for numerical 
> computing arise around D!

Me too.
Don.