2006-05-26 -- The 1.0 release is now ready. By the way, I am currently using the scalar class for real engineering work, so it is getting tested far more extensively than is indicated by the basic test directory included in the distribution.
Here is the abstract from the user guide:
Abstract-- A Python class was designed to represent physical scalars and to eliminate errors involving implicit physical units (e.g., confusing angular degrees and radians). The standard arithmetic operators are overloaded to provide syntax identical to that for built-in numeric types. The scalar class comes with a complete implementation of the standard metric system of units and many standard non-metric units. It also allows the user to easily define a specialized or reduced set of appropriate physical units for any particular application or domain. Once an application has been developed and tested, the units can easily be switched off, if desired, to achieve the execution efficiency of operations on built-in numeric types (which can be two orders of magnitude faster). The scalar class can also be used for discrete units to enforce type checking of integer counts, thereby enhancing the built-in dynamic type checking of Python.
User Guide -- HTML online version
User Guide -- PDF version for printing
Download scalar-1.0.tar.gz (~58 kB)