[Numpy-discussion] Going toward time-based release ?

[Mike Ressler]

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 7:59 PM, David Cournapeau
<cournapeau at cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>         I would like to know how people feel about going toward a time-based
>  release process for numpy (and scipy).

-1

I'm just a common user, but please, no. The big Linux distros do this
and it drives me nuts. Just when things are finally beginning to
settle down, they throw another big, buggy release out the door
because they are trying to meet some ridiculous 6 month cycle. "We"
haven't even gotten the major distros to dump Numeric-24 yet
(something else depends on it - pygtk maybe?), though most offer numpy
as an option; what kind of disaster will we have with new numpy
releases every 3 or 6 months?

Numpy doesn't (and probably shouldn't) change that rapidly. I would
really hope that the core numpy is solid, stable, and predictable. I
like major and minor version numbers that indicate a major change is
coming. If it's only a minor version number change, I know that I can
update it safely and go merrily computing on my way. "2008.04" doesn't
tell me if it is a minor bug fix or a major blow to my sanity.

So, please, if at all possible, keep the feature numbering. Thanks for
hearing me out.

Mike

-- 
mike.ressler at alum.mit.edu