On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 12:56 AM, David Cournapeau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Please keep in mind that there are a number of these "awkward" > > "wrong-default" arguments. I was hoping these would be unified [e.g. > > always same default, axis=None] very soon -- that is in 1.1. > > Is this noted somewhere (e.g. is there a ticket for it ?). I think > unifying API is really important, and the only way to do it is to keep > track of those inconsistencies, so that we can decide what to do with them.
I agree that unifying the API is really important. So I agree with Robert that we need to be extremely conservative in breaking the API. However, unifying the API is one area that I think could arguably (depending on the specific case) justify breaking the existing API. For instance, the 1.1.0 release, which will come out ASAP, introduces 'axis' support for numpy.median(). In 1.1, by default "axis=0" and then in the 1.2.0 release, which will come out at the end of summer, "axis=None" by default: http://scipy.org/scipy/numpy/ticket/558 Another example of a potential API break has been proposed for histogram: http://projects.scipy.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/2008-April/032450.html http://scipy.org/scipy/numpy/ticket/605 If someone could put together a list of instances like these that we should discuss, it would be extremely useful. We could potentially try and put in warnings for functions that we want to modify. Again we need to be extremely careful here. We should avoid breaking our user's code as much as possible. However, when our current API is "broken" we should be open to the possibility that in may need to be fixed. Functions with anomalous interfaces seem like a good example of candidates that would be worth modifying. However, we need to consider whether the code is so widely used that modifying it would unacceptable. Furthermore, I would be less concerned about modifying the interface to functions, if we can also include an upgrade script that will automatically fix old code. So, for example, we could include an upgrade script with 1.2, which modifies calls to numpy.median() so that 'axis=0'. That way our users could upgrade their code to work with NumPy 1.2 by simply running the upgrade script. Thanks, -- Jarrod Millman Computational Infrastructure for Research Labs 10 Giannini Hall, UC Berkeley phone: 510.643.4014 http://cirl.berkeley.edu/ _______________________________________________ Numpy-discussion mailing list Numpy-discussion@scipy.org http://projects.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
