[Numpy-discussion] Numpy 1.6 schedule (was: Numpy 2.0 schedule)

[Travis Oliphant]

Thanks (again) for taking this on Ralf.  You are doing a superb job and deserve much thanks for keeping the NumPy project on track.

I'm very encouraged by the NumPy 1.6 work.   I was looking over the code some more on the plane yesterday that Mark Wiebe has checked in (I finally was able to create my own fork of NumPy and start hacking on it again).   The new ufunc refactoring is very good and Mark should be congratulated.   It puts NumPy in a good place for further work that can be done for NumPy 2.0.    

I do have one question, however.   It looks like the code for ufunc casting behavior was changed almost completely.   I have no intrinsic problem with that, but I am a bit concerned that we may not have tested all the corner cases very well.   The code that was in NumPy was a straightforward alteration of the algorithm that has been in use since 1995 when Numeric was written.   That is not to say that it is "correct," just that it had a certain behavior.     Large scale code changes typically have alternative "accidental" behavior. 

I am just a little nervous that the code changes will mean that more code will break than we expect.   To me, what this means is that we just emphasize the point in the release notes, and encourage people to test their code as soon as possible during the month-long beta-testing phase.    

All the best, 

-Travis




On Mar 4, 2011, at 12:54 AM, Ralf Gommers wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Ralf Gommers
> <ralf.gommers at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:36 PM, Bruce Southey <bsouthey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 02/28/2011 02:00 AM, Ralf Gommers wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 7:15 AM, Travis Oliphant<oliphant at enthought.com>  wrote:
>>>>> The reason for a NumPy 1.6 suggestion, is that Mark (and others it would
>>>>> seem) have additional work and features that do not need to wait for the
>>>>> NumPy 2.0 ABI design to finalize in order to get out there.
>>>>> If someone is willing to manage the release of NumPy 1.6, then it sounds
>>>>> like a great idea to me.
>>>> This thread ended without a conclusion a month ago. Now I think master
>>>> is in a better state than a month ago for a release (py 2.4/2.5/3.x
>>>> issues and segfault on OS X fixed, more testing of changes), and I
>>>> have a better idea of my free time for March/April. Basically, I have
>>>> a good amount of time for the next couple of weeks, and not so much at
>>>> the end of March / first half of April due to an inter-continental
>>>> move. But I think we can get out a beta by mid-March, and I can manage
>>>> the release.
>>>> 
>>>> I've had a look at the bug tracker, here's a list of tickets for 1.6:
>>>> #1748 (blocker: regression for astype('str'))
>>>> #1619 (issue with dtypes, with patch)
>>>> #1749 (distutils, py 3.2)
>>>> #1601 (distutils, py 3.2)
>>>> #1622 (Solaris segfault, with patch)
>>>> #1713 (Solaris segfault)
>>>> #1631 (Solaris segfault)
> 
> The distutils tickets are resolved.
> 
>>>> Proposed schedule:
>>>> March 15: beta 1
>>>> March 28: rc 1
>>>> April 17: rc 2 (if needed)
>>>> April 24: final release
> 
> Any comments on the schedule or tickets?
> 
> Before the first beta can be released I think #1748 should be fixed.
> Before the first RC the Solaris segfaults should be investigated, and
> documentation for the new iterator (Python docstrings and C API docs)
> and datetime should be written.
> 
> Also, some testing on 64-bit Windows would be great, that usually
> turns up new issues so the sooner the better.
> 
> Ralf
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---
Travis Oliphant
Enthought, Inc.
oliphant at enthought.com
1-512-536-1057
http://www.enthought.com