[Numpy-discussion] classmethods for ndarray

[Matt Knox]

> Would this break previously saved pickles, so you couldn't load them?  I ran 
into
> that problem last year when there was a change to numpy.  Is that something 
that 
> would happen here?
> 
> 			bb
> 

Regardless of whether or not this change will "break pickles", it seems highly 
likely to me that other future changes will prevent you from loading arrays 
pickled with older versions of numpy and python. That is one of several reasons 
why I generally think relying on direct pickling for storage is not a good 
idea. Another reason is that loading data becomes an all or nothing 
proposition, you can't read half of an array off the disk for example (not 
easily anyway). If you need to store numpy arrays directly, pytables 
(www.pytables.org) is the best solution that I am aware of, and it will 
(mostly) save you from worrying about these kinds of issues in the future.

- Matt