[SciPy-Dev] Mea culpa: deprecation and API changes

[Warren Weckesser]

Warren Weckesser wrote:
> Ryan May wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:04 PM, Warren Weckesser
>> <warren.weckesser at enthought.com> wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Warren Weckesser wrote:
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> Opinion wanted:  codata.find(sub) used to print a list of strings.  A
>>>> while ago, in response to http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/ticket/996,  I
>>>> changed it to return the list of strings.  But this is an API change,
>>>> and should follow the deprecation policy.  One way to do this is to
>>>> restore find() to its previous behavior, and deprecate the function.  At
>>>> the same time, add a new function, find_string(sub), which returns the
>>>> list of strings.  What do you think?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> Instead of creating a new function, I added a keyword argument whose
>>> default value (True) preserves the old behavior.  When it is False, it
>>> returns the keys instead of printing them.  In 0.9, the default behavior
>>> will be reversed.
>>>     
>>>       
>> Why not always return the list and just make only the print controlled
>> by the kwarg? That way the return type of the function doesn't depend
>> on a kwarg, which IIRC is considered bad style. You won't break
>> existing code, which will just ignore the new return value.
>>   
>>     
>
> That seemed the most conservative approach, despite being bad style.  It 
> can all be cleaned up in 0.9 anyway.
>
> I'm currently working on "fixing" signal.waveforms.chirp to maintain 
> compatibility for one release cycle.  More judgment calls will be 
> required, and I'm sure that not everyone would do it the same way.
>
> Anyone want to write the official "SciPy Developers Deprecation 
> Guidelines (with recommended patterns of deprecation and a bunch of 
> use-cases)"?
>   

Hmmm... perhaps that should be "Developers' Deprecation Guidelines".  
Without the apostrophe, it could mean something else.  :)

> Warren
>
>   
>> Ryan
>>
>>   
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> SciPy-Dev mailing list
> SciPy-Dev at scipy.org
> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/scipy-dev
>