[SciPy-dev] [Numpy-discussion] Deprecate chararray [was Plea for help]

[David Cournapeau]

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Christopher Hanley<chanley at stsci.edu> wrote:

>
> Another concern is that we told people coming from numarray to use
> this module.  It is my opinion that at this point in the numpy release
> cycle that an API change needs a very strong justification.  Anecdotes
> about the number of users, a "change or die" philosophy, and an un-
> articulated notion of  "the spirit of numpy"  do not in my
> consideration meet that high bar.

I agree those are not strong reasons without more backing.  What
worries me the most, in both numpy and scipy, is code that nobody
knows about, without any test or documentation. When it breaks, we
can't fix it. That's unsustainable in the long term, because it takes
a lot of time that people could spend somewhere else more useful.
Especially when you have C code which does not work on some platforms,
with new version of python (python 3k port, for example).

I much prefer removing code to having code that barely works and
cannot be maintained. Old code that people are ready to maintain, I
have nothing against.

cheers,

David