[Numpy-discussion] Fixing numpy 1.4.0 ABI breakage, and a plea for self-contained, small commits

[Bruce Southey]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 11:02 PM, David Cournapeau
<david at silveregg.co.jp> wrote:
> Charles R Harris wrote:
>
>>
>> Whatever we do, it would be good to figure out some way to avoid this
>> problem in the future. We could hide access to the array, for instance.
>> But again, that would require a lot of other code mods. Hmm...
>
> That's something that we have to do at some point if we care about ABI
> (I think we should care - expecting people to recompile all the
> extensions for a new version of numpy is a big hindrance).
>
> Assuming python 1.5 will have py3k support, I was wondering about
> starting working on NumPy 2.0, with massive changes to the C API so that
> we can avoid this problem in the future: no more "naked" structures,
> much cleaner/leaner headers to avoid accidental reliance on specific
> private binary layouts, etc...
>
> David

Numpy 1.5? :-)

That was an incredible effort!

My understanding is that a minor numpy release should not break the
ABI and a major release is required when there is an ABI
breakage.Thus, this ABI change must be in numpy 2.0 and not allowed in
the numpy 1.x series unless the changes can not be 'easily' made in a
way that does not break the 1.x series ABI. Alternatively, just
acknowledge the fact as a unintended consequence and move on - which
has happened before in numpy for a similar situation (see links
below).

Recent comments appeared in David's thread 'Going toward time-based release ?'
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.numeric.general/21368
Especially Robert's and Jarrod's responses in the sub-thread:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.numeric.general/21378

Hopefully some users of the numpy ABI can provide some feedback on their needs.

Just my 2 cents,
Bruce