[Numpy-discussion] Implementations of ndarray.__array_function__ (and ndarray.__array_ufunc__)

[Stephan Hoyer]

On Sun, Nov 4, 2018 at 8:45 AM Marten van Kerkwijk <
m.h.vankerkwijk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does the above make sense? I realize that the same would be true for
> `__array_ufunc__`, though there the situation is slightly trickier since it
> is not as easy to bypass any further override checks. Nevertheless, it does
> seem like it would be correct to do the same there. (And if we agree this
> is the case, I'd quite happily implement it -- with the merger of
> multiarray and umath it has become much easier to do.)
>

Marten actually implemented a draft version of this already in
https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/12328 :). I found reading over the PR
helpful for understand this proposal.

I guess the practical import of this change is that it makes it (much?)
easier to write __array_function__ for ndarray subclasses: if there's a
function where NumPy's default function works fine, you don't need to
bother with returning anything other than NotImplemented from
__array_function__. It's sort of like NotImplementedButCoercible, but only
for ndarray subclasses.

One minor downside is that this might make it harder to eventually
deprecate and/or contemplate removing checks for 'mean' methods in
functions like np.mean(), because __array_function__ implementers might
still be relying on this.

But so far, I think this makes sense.

The PR includes additional changes to np.core.overrides, but I'm not sure
if those are actually required here (or rather only possible due to this
change). I guess they are needed if you want to be able to count on
ndarray.__array_function__ being called after subclass __array_function__
methods.

I'm not sure I like this part: it means that ndarray.__array_function__
actually gets called when other arguments implement __array_function__. For
interactions with objects that aren't ndarray subclasses this is entirely
pointless and would unnecessarily slow things down, since
ndarray._array_function__ will always return NotImplemented.
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