I don't understand this remark: <snip >but I am making an argument that perhaps
numarray should only go so far in the support of what I regard as an obsolescent feature. If the Numeric developers choose to continue extending the use of typecodes in ways that are incompatible with numarray, one way of dealing with it is to "just say no". We are going beyond the scope of backwards compatability to on-going compatabilty. (Which we may still have to do but needs to be discussed and considered)
There is no "on-going" Numeric development. It stops the minute numarray is ready. Period. We developers all agreed on that. The whole reason for numarray is that Numeric was pronounced unmaintainable and unextendable by those who frequently had to work on it. To do anything else will fragment the entire numerical python community and software set.