[Numpy-discussion] label NA and datetime as experimental

[Ralf Gommers]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 5:42 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 2:29 AM, Richard Hattersley <rhattersley at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> My team are currently experimenting with extending datetime to allow
>> alternative, non-physical calendars (e.g. 360-day used by climate
>> modellers). Once we've got a handle on the options we'd like to
>> propose the extensions/changes back to NumPy. Obviously we'd like to
>> avoid wasted effort, so are there some aspects of datetime64 which are
>> more experimental than others? Is there a summary of unresolved issues
>> and/or plans for change?
>>
>>
> I believe datetime is already used by Pandas, so I don't think there will
> be major changes there. I'm not aware of open issues, but I could be wrong.
> The calenders are a bit independent, so I think the best procedure is to go
> ahead with your work. We want to leave some wiggle room since new features
> often need a little time to mature. That's how it looks to me anyway.
>

That's my understanding too. Perhaps Mark can comment on the current
status. That status and changes need to still be described in the release
notes by the way.

The experimental tag is mostly due to the datetime history: it was
introduced in 1.4.0, removed again in 1.4.1, reintroduced in 1.6.0, the API
then labeled not useful (
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.numeric.general/44162/focus=44385),
then more changes for this release. I hope it's stable now, but seeing what
came before and that it still doesn't work with MinGW it's hard to be sure.

Ralf
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/attachments/20120326/0d5f039f/attachment.html>