[SciPy-dev] Deprecating packages

[David Cournapeau]

Robert Kern wrote:
> David Cournapeau wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>     In the context of releasing soon a new scipy tarball, I was 
>> wondering what is the most appropriate approach to deprecate toolboxes 
>> (in sandbox, not standard packages of course). 4 packages in 
>> scipy.sandbox are now in scikits.learn (pyem, svm, ann and ga). What I 
>> did for pyem is to throw an import error in the __init__ with 
>> instructions on where to get the new code. Can I do the same for other 
>> packages (those were not "mine", so I didn't want to change anything 
>> before feedback) ?
>
> Sandbox packages have no guarantees of stability, buildability, or continued
> existence. You can just move them without bothering with any kind of deprecation
> step. That said, it would be a good idea to talk to the authors of the packages
> that aren't yours.
>
> As I haven't heard from Fred Mailhot since the end of the SoC project for ann,
> I'll stand in and say go for it. I'd kinda like to see ga go back to scipy.ga if
> it's working again 
ga does not work, I think. I can remove ga from scikits.learn, it is 
still in the sandbox. So I will contact A. Strasheim for svm.

David