[Numpy-discussion] The process I intend to follow for any proposed changes to NumPy

[Nathaniel Smith]

Hi all,

Thanks, Travis, for the followup. I know some people were confused or
concerned by some points in Travis’s recent emails (as was I,
initially), but after checking in with Travis and the NumPy steering
council, it sounds like the main points of possible confusion are
actually things where we at least are actually on the same page. So to
avoid any uncertainty or miscommunication, I just want to reiterate
some hopefully-uncontroversial points here:

- There is currently no plan whatsoever for NumPy to drop Python 2
support; something like ~80% of our users are still using Python 2,
and we anticipate that both Python 2 and Python 3 will continue to
receive full support for the foreseeable future.

- While it is possible that there will eventually be a
compatibility-breaking “NumPy 2.0” release, it won’t happen without a
community consensus that this is a good idea, and that consensus has
not yet been reached.

- As a clarification on how NumPy governance works: While we all
continue to be grateful to Travis for his past contributions, in terms
of formal authority he stepped down from his leadership role in the
project several years ago, and the project has since switched to a
community-driven governance model [1]. Under this model, all
contributors participate as equal peers, and (outside of specific
exceptional circumstances) all contributors should be assumed to be
speaking only on behalf of themselves, not the project as a whole.

- Discussion about the best way to improve NumPy’s dtype system is
ongoing, and several approaches are under consideration. No proposal
will be accepted without review and consensus by the broader NumPy
community. We welcome anyone who’s interested in these issues to join
us on the mailing list -- the more input we have, the better the
result will be :-).

Apologies for the wide distribution of this message; I suggest any
followups be directed to numpy-discussion at scipy.org only.

Thanks,
- Nathaniel

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.numeric.general/61106
(we’ll move it into the repository soon, we promise!)

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 3:51 PM, Travis Oliphant <travis at continuum.io> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I just wanted to clarify, that I am very excited about a few ideas I have
> --- but I don't have time myself to engage in the community process to get
> these changes into NumPy.     However, those are real processes --- I've
> been coaching a few people in those processes for the past several years
> already.
>
> So, rather than do nothing, what I'm looking to do is to work with a few
> people who I can share my ideas with, get excited about the ideas, and then
> who will work with the community to get them implemented.   That's what I
> was announcing and talking about yesterday --- looking for interested people
> who want to work on NumPy *with* the NumPy community.
>
> In my enthusiasm, I realize that some may have mis-understood my intention.
> There is no 'imminent' fork, nor am I planning on doing some crazy amount of
> work that I then try to force on other developers of NumPy.
>
> What I'm planning to do is find people to train on NumPy code base (people
> to increase the diversity of the developers would be ideal -- but hard to
> accomplish).  I plan to train them on NumPy based on my experience, and on
> what I think should be done --- and then have *them* work through the
> community process and engage with others to get consensus (hopefully not
> losing too much in translation in the process --- but instead getting even
> better).
>
> During that process I will engage as a member of the community and help
> write NEPs and other documents and help clarify where it makes sense as I
> can.   I will be filtering for people that actually want to see NumPy get
> better.    Until I identify the people and work with them, it will be hard
> to tell how this will best work.   So, stay tuned.
>
> If all goes well, what you should see in a few weeks time are specific
> proposals, a branch or two, and the beginnings of some pull requests.    If
> you don't see that, then I will not have found the right people to help me,
> and we will all continue to go back to searching.
>
> While I'm expecting the best, in the worst case, we get additional people
> who know the NumPy code base and can help squash bugs as well as implement
> changes that are desired.    Three things are needed if you want to
> participate in this:  1) A willingness to work with the open source
> community, 2) a deep knowledge of C and in-particular CPython's brand of C,
> and 3) a willingness to engage with me, do a mind-meld and dump around the
> NumPy code base, and then improve on what is in my head with the rest of the
> community.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Travis
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org