[Numpy-discussion] Removing datetime support for 1.4.x series ?

[Travis Oliphant]

On Feb 8, 2010, at 4:08 PM, Darren Dale wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Darren Dale <dsdale24 at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Jarrod Millman  
>> <millman at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Charles R Harris
>>> <charlesr.harris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Should the release containing the datetime/hasobject changes be  
>>>> called
>>>>
>>>> a) 1.5.0
>>>> b) 2.0.0
>>>
>>> My vote goes to b.
>>
>> You don't matter. Nor do I.
>
> I definitely should have counted to 100 before sending that. It wasn't
> helpful and I apologize.
>

I actually found this quite funny.    I need to apologize if my  
previous email sounded like I was trying to silence other opinions,  
somehow.   As Robert alluded to in a rather well-written email that  
touched on resolving disagreements, it can be hard to communicate that  
you are listening to opposing views despite the fact that your opinion  
has not changed.

We have a SciPy steering committee that should be reviewed again this  
year at the SciPy conference.   As Robert said, we prefer not to have  
to use it to decide questions.   I think it has been trotted out as a  
place holder for a NumPy steering committee which has never really  
existed as far as I know.   NumPy decisions in the past have been made  
by me and other people who are writing the code.   I think we have  
tried pretty hard to listen to all points of view before doing  
anything.    I think there are many examples of this.   I hope this  
previous history alleviates some concern that something else is going  
to be done here.    Exhibit A is again my comment that we should  
change one of the members of an internal data structure ('hasobject')  
which I thought we would change at 1.1, but the demand for ABI  
stability has left it unchanged to this day.

The list I proposed for deciding the issue was the group I am aware of  
having written significant code for NumPy.    I suppose I un- 
intentionally left off Pierre GM who contributed masked array  
support.     We need some way of making a decision, and actually  
painting this bike shed.

Christopher's argument that having a NumPy 2.0 sets expectations for  
keeping 1.4 and 2.0 is a strong one in my mind.   The policy of  
coupling ABI and version numbers makes less and less sense to me as I  
hear the concerns of keeping the ABI consistent.    We should be free  
to change the version numbers without implying an ABI break.     I can  
only envision right now perhaps one more ABI break (the one David has  
talked about to make pimpl interfaces).

If anyone else feels like their point of view has not been expressed,  
then please speak up now.

Best regards,

-Travis



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