[Numpy-discussion] NA masks in the next numpy release?

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Charles R Harris
<charlesr.harris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs at pobox.com> wrote:
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > I was surprised today to notice that Mark's NA mask support appears to
>> > have been merged into numpy master and is described in the draft
>> > release notes[1]. My surprise is because merging it to mainline
>> > without any discussion on the list seems to contradict what what
>> > Travis wrote in July, that it was being developed as an experiment and
>> > explicitly *not* intended to be merged without further discussion:
>> >
>> > "Basically, because there is not consensus and in fact a strong and
>> > reasonable opposition to specific points, Mark's NEP as proposed
>> > cannot be accepted in its entirety right now. However,  I believe an
>> > implementation of his NEP is useful and will be instructive in
>> > resolving the issues and so I have instructed him to spend Enthought
>> > time on the implementation. Any changes that need to be made to the
>> > API before it is accepted into a released form of NumPy can still be
>> > made even after most of the implementation is completed as far as I
>> > understand it."[2]
>> >
>> > Can anyone explain what the plan is here? Is the idea to continue the
>> > discussion and rework the API while it is in master, delaying the next
>> > release for as long as it takes to achieve consensus? Or is there some
>> > mysterious git thing going on where "master" is actually an
>> > experimental branch and the real mainline development is happening
>> > somewhere else? Or something else I'm not thinking of? Please help me
>> > understand.
>>
>> I don't know about you, but watching the development from a distance
>> it became increasingly clear to me that this would happen.  I"m sure
>> you've had the experience as I have, of mixing several desirable
>> changes into the same set of commits, and it's hard work to avoid
>> this.  I imagine this is what happened with Mark's MA changes.
>>
>> The result is actually an extension of the problems of the original
>> discussion, which is a feeling that we the community do not have a say
>> in the development.
>>
>> I think this email might be a plea to the numpy steering group, and to
>> Travis in particular, to see if we can use a discussion of this series
>> of events to decide on a good way to proceed in future.
>>
>
> Oh come, people had plenty to say, you and Nathaniel in particular.  Mark
> pointed to the pull request, anyone who was interested could comment on it,
> Benjamin Root did so, for instance. The fact things didn't go the way you
> wanted doesn't indicate insufficient discussion. And you are certainly
> welcome to put together an alternative and put up a pull request.

I was also guessing that something like this would be the reply to
Nathaniel's post.

I think this reply is rude because it implies some sort of sour-grapes
from Nathaniel, when he is politely referring back to an explicit
reassurance from Travis.

I was trying to avoid this sort of thing by concentrating on thinking
about what to do in future.

Best,

Matthew

Matthew