I was working on an application which requires assigning (i.e.
deep copying) a two dimensional array (i.e. a list of lists). As
an aside, it also requires adding a one dimensional array
elementwise to a one dimensional slice of a two dimensional
array.
In general, my mindset is APL-ish here and I would like to assign
(i.e. deep copy) multi-dimensional arrays. (Actually I would like
to do other APL style operations as well including elementwise
operations such as addition and subtraction on pairs of
multidimensional, or at least one and two dimensional arrays.)
At least some of these items (such as assigning multidimensional
arrays in a deep copy sense) seem as fundamental to me as strings
and dictionaries.
I assume that the applications you refer to above were primarily
systems software oriented whereas I am referring more to
mathematical, statistical and data processing sorts of
applications.
-- Lou Kates, louk@research.teleride.on.ca