[Numpy-discussion] Deprecating matrices.

[Ralf Gommers]

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 9:07 AM, Bryan Van de Ven <bryanv at continuum.io>
wrote:

> There's a good chance that bokeh.charts will be split off into a
> separately distributed package as well. Hopefully being a much smaller,
> pure Python project makes it a more accessible target for anyone interested
> in maintaining it, and if no one is interested in it anymore, well that
> fact becomes easier to judge. I think it would be a reasonable approach
> here for the same reasons.
>
> Bryan
>
> On Jan 3, 2017, at 13:54, Benjamin Root <ben.v.root at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That's not a bad idea. Matplotlib is currently considering something
> similar for its mlab module. It has been there since the beginning, but it
> is very outdated and very out-of-scope for matplotlib. However, there are
> still lots of code out there that depends on it. So, we are looking to
> split it off as its own package. The details still need to be worked out
> (should we initially depend on the package and simply alias its import with
> a DeprecationWarning, or should we go cold turkey and have a good message
> explaining the change).
>
> Don't go cold turkey please, that still would break a lot of code. Even
with a good message, breaking things isn't great.


>
> Ben Root
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 2:31 PM, Todd <toddrjen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 8:36 PM, Charles R Harris <
>> charlesr.harris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Just throwing this click bait out for discussion. Now that the `@`
>>> operator is available and things seem to be moving towards Python 3,
>>> especially in the classroom, we should consider the real possibility of
>>> deprecating the matrix type and later removing it. No doubt there are old
>>> scripts that require them, but older versions of numpy are available for
>>> those who need to run old scripts.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> Chuck
>>>
>>>
>> What if the matrix class was split out into its own project, perhaps as a
>> scikit.
>>
> Something like "npmatrix" would be a better name, we'd like to keep
scikit- for active well-maintained projects I'd think.


>   That way those who really need it can still use it.  If there is
>> sufficient desire for it, those who need it can maintain it.  If not, it
>> will hopefully it will take long enough for it to bitrot that everyone has
>> transitioned.
>>
>
This sounds like a reasonable idea. Timeline could be something like:

1. Now: create new package, deprecate np.matrix in docs.
2. In say 1.5 years: start issuing visible deprecation warnings in numpy
3. After 2020: remove matrix from numpy.

Ralf
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