[SciPy-Dev] when to drop numpy 1.5.x/1.6.x support?

[Lars Buitinck]

2014-12-14 11:02 GMT+01:00 Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers at gmail.com>:
>> On 13 December 2014 at 13:34, Lars Buitinck <larsmans at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I don't, but I just checked the NumPy version that comes with various
>> > Linux distros so we can see what people are likely to have. There is
>> > no Ubuntu long-term support release that ships 1.5, only 1.4 (10.04)
>> > or 1.6 (12.04) [1]. Debian doesn't list 1.5 for any of its releases
>> > either [2]. CentOS 6 ships 1.4 [3], while CentOS 7 ships 1.7.1 [4].
>
>
> Thanks for checking. The most recent Ubuntu LTS and CentOS releases are good
> data points in general I'd say. In this case Ubuntu (and Debian stable) are
> on 1.6.x, so keep that but drop 1.5.x then?

I'd say so.

> On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 10:22 PM, Daπid <davidmenhur at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think never versions of Scipy should just target maintained versions
>> of Numpy, for some definition of "maintained".
>
> In principle only the last released numpy version gets new bugfix point
> releases, in exceptional cases maybe one version further back. So there's a
> good chance we'll get a numpy 1.9.2, little chance for a 1.8.3 and close to
> zero chance for a 1.7.3. I don't think that we can consider dropping numpy
> 1.7.x or 1.8.x support.

NumPy releases are not always backwards compatible. Supporting an
earlier version makes it easier for users to migrate their code. It's
also easier for buildbots (Travis) if they can fetch a prepackaged
NumPy.