Re: Designing Perl 6 data crunching (was Re: n-dim matrices)

Jeremy Howard wrote:
> 
> Baris wrote:
> > First of all I know that perl syntax has limitations and I understand why
> > the reasons of the new syntax proposals. And I think the syntax proposals
> > are pretty good if you accept the syntax limitations. I don't think any of
> > them do consider that if somebody will write a PDL program he will use pdl
> > constructs and functions 99% of the time. So it should be user friendly
> and
> > this requires some radical changes in perl. But it looks like I am the
> only
> > one supporting this idea.

What are these proposed radical changes? Ok, we have the slicing syntax
issue and how to write 2D/3D matrices. Does it stop there? What are the
other issues?

> Creating a 'user friendly' data-crunching language should not be about just
> catering to Matlab users, or those needing to implement FFTs... I hope that
> we can make Perl more useful for all the people who have to analyse their
> web logs, or summarise their customer segments, or review survey results, or
> any of the many things Mere Mortals want to do. Effective array notation in
> Perl should make these things easy, fast, and intuitive to Perl users.

There might still be a need for something for those people who need FFTs
and work on really large blocks of data. The hope would be that a perl6
PDL would fill such a gap and be more perlish than it is now. But again
concrete syntax ideas are needed along with a clear statement of current
weaknesses...

  Christian