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

[David Cournapeau]

Joris De Ridder wrote:
>
> As long as it does not imply that users have to upgrade every 3  
> months, because for some users this is impossible and/or undesirable.  
> By 'upgrading' I'm not only referring to numpy/scipy, but also to  
> external packages based on numpy/scipy.

As I said, time-based release do not imply that we will break something 
every release. This is really an orthogonal issue. I certainly hope that 
the recent ma/matrix thing won't happen again. If it were me, I would 
have never accepted the ma or any matrix change in the numpy 1.* timespan.

Concerning packages which depend on numpy, there is not much we can do: 
if they depend on new features on numpy, you will have to upgrade, but 
this has nothing to do with the release process.

>
> As Mike, I'm a bit sceptic about the whole idea. The current way  
> doesn't seem broken, so why fix it?

If the recent events do not show that something went wrong, I don't know 
what will :) numpy 1.0.4 was released 6 months ago, and numpy 1.1 has 
slipped for a long time now. If there is no schedule, it is easy to keep 
adding code, specially when the release approaches ("I want to see my 
changes in the next release, let's push some code just before the release").

The plan really is to have a code freeze and hard freeze between each 
release, and time-based releases are more natural for that IMO, because 
contributors can plan and synchronize more easily. Maybe it won't work, 
but it worths a try; As Robert mentioned it before, code freeze and hard 
code freeze is what matters.

cheers,

David