[Numpy-discussion] the making of the NumPy roadmap

[Ralf Gommers]

On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 1:55 PM Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 10:24 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> A little while ago I wrote a blog post about the history of us
>> constructing the roadmap we currently have:
>> https://rgommers.github.io/2018/10/the-making-of-the-numpy-roadmap/.
>> There was a request to post it to this list, which seems appropriate. So
>> below it is in full.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ralf
>>
>>
>> NumPy now has a [roadmap](https://www.numpy.org/neps/index.html#roadmap)
>> - long overdue and a major step forward for the project.  We're not done
>> yet (see [my previous post](
>> https://rgommers.github.io/2018/10/2018-numfocus-summit---a-summary/) on
>> this topic) and updating the technical roadmap with new ideas and
>> priorities should happen regularly.  Despite everything having been done in
>> the open, via minutes of in-person meetings and shared roadmap drafts on
>> the numpy-discussion mailing list, it turns out that it's not completely
>> clear to the community and even some maintainers how we got to this point.
>> So now seems like a good time for a summary.
>>
>> ## Act 1: NumPy sprint at BIDS
>>
>> During 24-25 May 2018 a number of people - Stéfan van der Walt, Charles
>> Harris, Stephan Hoyer, Matti Picus, Jarrod Millman, Nathaniel J. Smith, and
>> Matthew Rocklin - came together at [BIDS](https://bids.berkeley.edu/) in
>> Berkeley for a NumPy sprint.  They had a productive brainstorm, which
>> resulted in a rough draft of a roadmap posted to the mailing list.  The
>> mailing list thread, [A roadmap for NumPy - longer term planning](
>> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/2018-June/thread.html#78103),
>> produced more suggestions and after incorporating those a [first pull
>> request](https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/11446) was made.
>>
>>
> Jaime Fernandez del Rio also attended that sprint.
>

Thanks Chuck, I'll update the post for that.

Cheers,
Ralf


>
>> ## Act 2: BoF and sprint at SciPy'18
>>
>> In order to collect input from as many people in the community as
>> possible, a BoF ([birds of a feather](
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_of_a_feather_(computing) session)
>> was held on 12 July 2018 during the SciPy 2018 conference in Austin.
>> Stephan Hoyer presented an overview of recent NEPs, and Matti Picus
>> presented the first roadmap draft and led a discussion with (I estimate)
>> 30-40 people in which a number of new ideas were added.  Other maintainers
>> present included Charles Harris, Tyler Reddy, Ralf Gommers and Stéfan van
>> der Walt; many other participants were developers of libraries that depend
>> on NumPy.
>>
>> At this point we had a fairly complete list of roadmap items, however the
>> document itself was still more a brainstorm dump than a roadmap document.
>> So during the NumPy sprint after the conference on 14 July 2018 Ralf
>> Gommers and Stephan Hoyer sat together to reshape and clean up these
>> ideas.  That resulted in [roadmap draft v2](
>> https://github.com/numpy/numpy/wiki/NumPy-roadmap-v2) - not yet fully
>> polished, but getting closer to something ready for acceptance.
>>
>> ## Act 3: NumPy sprint at BIDS
>>
>> In-person meetings seem to be critical to moving a complex and important
>> document like a project roadmap forward.  So the next draft was produced
>> during a second NumPy sprint at Berkeley during 23-27 July 2018.  Present
>> were Stéfan van der Walt, Matti Picus, Tyler Reddy and Ralf Gommers.  We
>> polished the document, worked out the [Scope of NumPy](
>> https://www.numpy.org/neps/scope.html) section in more detail, and
>> integrated the roadmap in the html docs.  During the sprint a [pull
>> request](https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/11611) was sent, and
>> [posted](
>> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/2018-July/thread.html#78458)
>> again to the mailing list.  Everyone seemed happy, and after addressing the
>> final few review comments the roadmap was merged on 2 August 2018.
>>
>> *Final thought: NumPy development is accelerating at the moment, and
>> in-person meetings and having the people and funding at BIDS to organize
>> sprints has been a huge help. See https://github.com/BIDS-numpy/docs for
>> an overview of what has been organized in the last year.*
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