Numpy and Common Lisp?

Wed Apr 12 12:10:50 UTC 2023

Dear Elliot, Robert, Daniel (just the last one writing) et al.

First of all, let me apologize for being snarky in my previous comments.  I
am getting older.

Of course, we cannot hope to muster anything like NUMFocus, that goes
without saying.  But, as Daniel suggested, we have different needs in the
community, w.r.t., mathematical and numerical issues: two outlooks could be
the following.

Some of us, Robert, for example if I am not wrong, want to use libraries
that are already out there.  This has a long history in the community: the
f2cl project has been instrumental in this respect, and the Matlisp project
did bring many well known Fortran libraries into the fold.  The number of
"math", "matrix", "statistical", "ML", libraries listed in CLiki is long.

Some of us, myself for example, have, at this point, an... aesthetic
approach to the matter (given my day job).  While I have no expectations
about the outcome, I like to make proposals for portable and foundational
specifications; hence my stance about "first specify, then code".  It is in
this spirit that I followed up on my pamphlet "Why you cannot..."
(doi:10.5281/zenodo.3759522) with an effort to provide a library
implementing the "Language Independent Arithmetic" (LIA) standards (
https://github.com/marcoxa/CDR-LIA-SPEC - preliminary code is at
https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/cl-lia/cl-lia )

I would welcome any help on this later effort.  The rest may follow...

A note on numpy.  In general, my feeling is that most of it is already in
the guts of Common Lisp.  Yet, it will be useful to check its API.  As it
would be useful to study more recent APIs for math/numerical libraries,
most notably, Julia.

All the best

Marco

On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 3:22 AM Elliott Johnson <elliott at elliottjohnson.net>
wrote:

> Robert,
>
> I must say that I am a big fan of your work on asdf and in awe of your
> professional and academic career.
>
> I agree with your assessment that numpy and the entirety of NUMFocus would
> be well outside the scope of the current CL community.
>
> In an effort to conserve the momentum of this thread and channel the
> spirit of my time at Franz Inc, I'd like to emphasize that a lot can be
> accomplished by a small team with clear goals and roles.
>
> I hope that if a such project arises that I can be of assistance.
>
> Best regards,
> Elliott
>
>
> Sent from my T-Mobile 5G Device
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.net>
> Date: 4/11/23 1:07 PM (GMT-08:00)
> To: Discussion list for Common Lisp professionals <pro at common-lisp.net>
> Subject: Re: Numpy and Common Lisp?
>
> I don't mean to rain on the parade, but the development and maintenance of
> numpy consumes a level of resources that is simply beyond the capacity of
> the CL community to muster.
>
> The NUMFocus project, a non-profit, supports this and other numerical
> computation projects (most, but not exclusively python), drawing on
> substantial amounts of corporate sponsorship.
>
> I urge you to cast your eyes on this NumFOCUS sponsors list before
> thinking that our community could even begin to tackle this task:
> https://numfocus.org/sponsors
>
> On 11 Apr 2023, at 7:14, Steven Nunez wrote:
>
> There's also the Lisp-Stat <https://lisp-stat.dev/> ecosystem, if you
> don't already know about it. Data-frame, array-operations and LLA (Lisp
> Linear Algebra) cover much of numpy's functionality; at least enough to get
> significant work done.
>
> On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 07:45:50 PM GMT+8, Elliott Johnson <
> elliott at elliottjohnson.net> wrote:
>
>
> FYI -  there appears to be a library called numcl that was written to
> cover numpy's functionality.
>
>    https://github.com/numcl/numcl
>
> I've yet to try it, but thought I'd pass along the link.
>
> Regards,
> Elliott Johnson
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Raymond Wiker <rwiker at gmail.com>
> Date: 4/11/23 3:53 AM (GMT-08:00)
> To: Discussion list for Common Lisp professionals <pro at common-lisp.net>
> Subject: Re: Numpy and Common Lisp?
>
> There’s cl-ana, which may be a useful substitute in some cases… or april,
> possibly.
>
> cliki.net
>
> cl-ana
> <https://www.cliki.net/cl-ana>
> cliki.net
>
> april
> <https://www.cliki.net/april>
>
> If you specifically want numpy, it may be possible to have Common Lisp
> talking to python.
>
> On 11 Apr 2023, at 08:41, Marco Antoniotti <marco.antoniotti at unimib.it>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Michael
>
> I am all for it.  But, as I said, I am an academic (and a cat).
>
> Should we (as in "a bunch of common lispers", most of whom with day jobs)
> want to do something like that, how would you want to proceed?  Note that I
> have been part of many past failures.
>
> All the best
>
> Marco
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 1:01 AM Michael Bentley <michael at stray-labs.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> IMHO, it'd be easier and effective to band up together and FIRST write a
> proper API specification and THEN implement it in CL.
>
>
> I agree.  Here’s the API specification for NumPy:
> https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/index.html#reference
>
> Looks rather intimidating. Less intimidating though, than doing the FFI
> dance, though.
>
>
>
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