Changed behavior of np.gradient
Hi everyone,
import numpy as np
np.__version__
'1.9.0'
np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float))
[array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[-0.5, 2.5, 5.5], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])] On the other hand:
import numpy as np
np.__version__
'1.8.2'
np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float))
[array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[ 1. , 2.5, 4. ], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])] For what it's worth, the 1.8 version of this function seems to be in agreement with the Matlab equivalent function ('gradient'):
gradient([[1, 2, 6]; [3, 4, 5]])
ans = 1.0000 2.5000 4.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 This seems like a regression to me, but maybe it's an improvement? Cheers,
On 4 Oct 2014, at 08:37 pm, Ariel Rokem <arokem@gmail.com> wrote:
import numpy as np np.__version__ '1.9.0' np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float)) [array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[-0.5, 2.5, 5.5], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])]
On the other hand:
import numpy as np np.__version__ '1.8.2' np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float)) [array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[ 1. , 2.5, 4. ], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])]
For what it's worth, the 1.8 version of this function seems to be in agreement with the Matlab equivalent function ('gradient'):
gradient([[1, 2, 6]; [3, 4, 5]]) ans = 1.0000 2.5000 4.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000
This seems like a regression to me, but maybe it's an improvement?
Technically yes, the function has been changed to use 2nd-order differences where possible, as is described in the docstring. Someone missed to update the example though, which still quotes the 1.8 results. And if the loss of Matlab-compliance is seen as a disadvantage, maybe there is a case for re-enabling the old behaviour via keyword argument? Cheers, Derek
On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 12:29 PM, Derek Homeier < derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014, at 08:37 pm, Ariel Rokem <arokem@gmail.com> wrote:
import numpy as np np.__version__ '1.9.0' np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float)) [array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[-0.5, 2.5, 5.5], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])]
On the other hand:
import numpy as np np.__version__ '1.8.2' np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float)) [array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[ 1. , 2.5, 4. ], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])]
For what it's worth, the 1.8 version of this function seems to be in agreement with the Matlab equivalent function ('gradient'):
gradient([[1, 2, 6]; [3, 4, 5]]) ans = 1.0000 2.5000 4.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000
This seems like a regression to me, but maybe it's an improvement?
Technically yes, the function has been changed to use 2nd-order differences where possible, as is described in the docstring. Someone missed to update the example though, which still quotes the 1.8 results. And if the loss of Matlab-compliance is seen as a disadvantage, maybe there is a case for re-enabling the old behaviour via keyword argument?
Thanks for clarifying - I see that now in the docstring as well. It went from: "The gradient is computed using central differences in the interior and first differences at the boundaries." to "The gradient is computed using second order accurate central differences in the interior and second order accurate one-sides (forward or backwards) differences at the boundaries.". I think that the docstring in 1.9 is fine (has the 1.9 result). The docs online (for all of numpy) are still on version 1.8, though. I think that enabling the old behavior might be useful, if only so that I can write code that behaves consistently across these two versions of numpy. For now, I might just copy over the 1.8 code into my project. Cheers, Ariel
Cheers, Derek
_______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
Hi Ariel,
I think that the docstring in 1.9 is fine (has the 1.9 result). The docs online (for all of numpy) are still on version 1.8, though.
I think that enabling the old behavior might be useful, if only so that I can write code that behaves consistently across these two versions of numpy. For now, I might just copy over the 1.8 code into my project.
Hmm, I got this with 1.9.0: Examples -------- >>> x = np.array([1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16], dtype=np.float) >>> np.gradient(x) array([ 1. , 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5. ]) >>> np.gradient(x, 2) array([ 0.5 , 0.75, 1.25, 1.75, 2.25, 2.5 ]) >>> np.gradient(np.array([[1, 2, 6], [3, 4, 5]], dtype=np.float)) [array([[ 2., 2., -1.], [ 2., 2., -1.]]), array([[ 1. , 2.5, 4. ], [ 1. , 1. , 1. ]])] In [5]: x =np.array([1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16], dtype=np.float) In [6]: print(np.gradient(x)) [ 0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 4.5 5.5] In [7]: print(np.gradient(x, 2)) [ 0.25 0.75 1.25 1.75 2.25 2.75] … I think there is a point for supporting the old behaviour besides backwards-compatibility or any sort of Matlab-compliance as I’d probably like to be able to restrict a function to linear/1st order differences in cases where I know the input to be not well-behaved. +1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag Cheers, Derek
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" < derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future. Stéfan
On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 3:16 PM, Stéfan van der Walt <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" < derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
How about 'matlab={True, False}'. There is an open issue <https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/5184> for this and it would be good to decide before 1.9.1 comes out. Chuck
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" <
derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.) -n
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" <
derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.)
I think maxorder is a bit misleading. The both versions are second order in the interior while at the ends the old is first order and the new is second order. Maybe edge_order? Chuck
On 14 Oct 2014 18:29, "Charles R Harris" <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" <
derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.)
I think maxorder is a bit misleading. The both versions are second order in the interior while at the ends the old is first order and the new is second order. Maybe edge_order?
Ah, that makes sense. edge_order makes more sense to me too then - and we can always add interior_order to complement it later, if appropriate. The other thing to decide on is the default. Is the 2nd order version generally preferred (modulo compatibility)? If so then it might make sense to keep it the default, given that there are already numpy's in the wild with that version, so we can't fully guarantee compatibility even if we wanted to. But what do others think? -n
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:50 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 14 Oct 2014 18:29, "Charles R Harris" <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" <
derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.)
I think maxorder is a bit misleading. The both versions are second order in the interior while at the ends the old is first order and the new is second order. Maybe edge_order?
Ah, that makes sense. edge_order makes more sense to me too then - and we can always add interior_order to complement it later, if appropriate.
The other thing to decide on is the default. Is the 2nd order version generally preferred (modulo compatibility)? If so then it might make sense to keep it the default, given that there are already numpy's in the wild with that version, so we can't fully guarantee compatibility even if we wanted to. But what do others think?
I'd be inclined to keep the older as the default and regard adding the keyword as a bugfix. I should have caught the incompatibility in review. Chuck
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:50 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 14 Oct 2014 18:29, "Charles R Harris" <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" <derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote:
+1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.)
I think maxorder is a bit misleading. The both versions are second order in the interior while at the ends the old is first order and the new is second order. Maybe edge_order?
Ah, that makes sense. edge_order makes more sense to me too then - and we can always add interior_order to complement it later, if appropriate.
The other thing to decide on is the default. Is the 2nd order version generally preferred (modulo compatibility)? If so then it might make sense to keep it the default, given that there are already numpy's in the wild with that version, so we can't fully guarantee compatibility even if we wanted to. But what do others think?
I'd be inclined to keep the older as the default and regard adding the keyword as a bugfix. I should have caught the incompatibility in review.
I don't have any code that uses gradient, so I don't have a great sense of the trade-offs here. - Usually if we have a change that produces increased accuracy, we make the increased accuracy the default. Otherwise no-one ever uses it, and everyone gets less accurate results than they would otherwise. (I don't have a great sense of how much this change affects accuracy though.) - If the change in output per se is a serious problem for people, then it's not one we can fix at this point -- 1.9.0 is out there and people are using it anyway, so those who have the problem already need to take some affirmative action to fix it. (Also, it's kinda weird to change a function's behaviour and add a new argument in a point release!) So I'd like to hear from people affected by this -- would you prefer to have the 2nd order boundary calculations by default, you just need some way to workaround the immediate problems in existing code? Or do you prefer the old default remain the default, with 2nd order boundary calculations something that must be requested by hand every time? -n -- Nathaniel J. Smith Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh http://vorpus.org
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:50 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On 14 Oct 2014 18:29, "Charles R Harris" <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com>
wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za> wrote:
On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" <derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote: > > +1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag
If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as
"second_order" or
"high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.)
I think maxorder is a bit misleading. The both versions are second order in the interior while at the ends the old is first order and the new is second order. Maybe edge_order?
Ah, that makes sense. edge_order makes more sense to me too then - and we can always add interior_order to complement it later, if appropriate.
The other thing to decide on is the default. Is the 2nd order version generally preferred (modulo compatibility)? If so then it might make sense to keep it the default, given that there are already numpy's in the wild with that version, so we can't fully guarantee compatibility even if we wanted to. But what do others think?
I'd be inclined to keep the older as the default and regard adding the keyword as a bugfix. I should have caught the incompatibility in review.
I don't have any code that uses gradient, so I don't have a great sense of the trade-offs here.
- Usually if we have a change that produces increased accuracy, we make the increased accuracy the default. Otherwise no-one ever uses it, and everyone gets less accurate results than they would otherwise. (I don't have a great sense of how much this change affects accuracy though.)
- If the change in output per se is a serious problem for people, then it's not one we can fix at this point -- 1.9.0 is out there and people are using it anyway, so those who have the problem already need to take some affirmative action to fix it. (Also, it's kinda weird to change a function's behaviour and add a new argument in a point release!)
So I'd like to hear from people affected by this -- would you prefer to have the 2nd order boundary calculations by default, you just need some way to workaround the immediate problems in existing code? Or do you prefer the old default remain the default, with 2nd order boundary calculations something that must be requested by hand every time?
-n
-- Nathaniel J. Smith Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh http://vorpus.org _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
Since I started this discussion, I'll chime in. I don't have a strong preference for either mode that stems from a computational/scientific principle. As Nathaniel suggested - I have resorted to simply copying the 1.8 version of the function into my algorithm implementation, with the hope of removing that down the line. In that respect, I have a very weak preference for preserving the (1.8) status quo per default. Thanks!
It isn't really a question of accuracy. It breaks unit tests and reproducibility elsewhere. My vote is to revert to the old behavior in 1.9.1. Ben Root On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Ariel Rokem <arokem@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:50 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com>
wrote:
On 14 Oct 2014 18:29, "Charles R Harris" <charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com>
wrote:
On 4 Oct 2014 22:17, "Stéfan van der Walt" <stefan@sun.ac.za>
wrote:
> > On Oct 4, 2014 10:14 PM, "Derek Homeier" > <derek@astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de> wrote: > > > > +1 for an order=2 or maxorder=2 flag > > If you parameterize that flag, users will want to change its value > (above two). Perhaps rather use a boolean flag such as "second_order" or > "high_order", unless it seems feasible to include additional orders in the > future.
Predicting the future is hard :-). And in particular high_order= would create all kinds of confusion if in the future we added 3rd order approximations but high_order=True continued to mean 2nd order because of compatibility. I like maxorder (or max_order would be more pep8ish I guess) because it leaves our options open. (Similar to how it's often better to have a kwarg that can take two possible string values than to have a boolean kwarg. It makes current code more explicit and makes future enhancements easier.)
I think maxorder is a bit misleading. The both versions are second order in the interior while at the ends the old is first order and the new is second order. Maybe edge_order?
Ah, that makes sense. edge_order makes more sense to me too then - and we can always add interior_order to complement it later, if appropriate.
The other thing to decide on is the default. Is the 2nd order version generally preferred (modulo compatibility)? If so then it might make sense to keep it the default, given that there are already numpy's in the wild with that version, so we can't fully guarantee compatibility even if we wanted to. But what do others think?
I'd be inclined to keep the older as the default and regard adding the keyword as a bugfix. I should have caught the incompatibility in review.
I don't have any code that uses gradient, so I don't have a great sense of the trade-offs here.
- Usually if we have a change that produces increased accuracy, we make the increased accuracy the default. Otherwise no-one ever uses it, and everyone gets less accurate results than they would otherwise. (I don't have a great sense of how much this change affects accuracy though.)
- If the change in output per se is a serious problem for people, then it's not one we can fix at this point -- 1.9.0 is out there and people are using it anyway, so those who have the problem already need to take some affirmative action to fix it. (Also, it's kinda weird to change a function's behaviour and add a new argument in a point release!)
So I'd like to hear from people affected by this -- would you prefer to have the 2nd order boundary calculations by default, you just need some way to workaround the immediate problems in existing code? Or do you prefer the old default remain the default, with 2nd order boundary calculations something that must be requested by hand every time?
-n
-- Nathaniel J. Smith Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh http://vorpus.org _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
Since I started this discussion, I'll chime in. I don't have a strong preference for either mode that stems from a computational/scientific principle. As Nathaniel suggested - I have resorted to simply copying the 1.8 version of the function into my algorithm implementation, with the hope of removing that down the line. In that respect, I have a very weak preference for preserving the (1.8) status quo per default.
Thanks!
_______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 2:23 AM, Benjamin Root <ben.root@ou.edu> wrote:
It isn't really a question of accuracy. It breaks unit tests and reproducibility elsewhere. My vote is to revert to the old behavior in 1.9.1.
Why would one want the 2nd order differences at all, if they're not more accurate? Should we just revert the patch entirely? I assumed the change had some benefit... -- Nathaniel J. Smith Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh http://vorpus.org
That isn't what I meant. Higher order doesn't "necessarily" mean more accurate. The results simply have different properties. The user needs to choose the differentiation order that they need. One interesting effect in data assimilation/modeling is that even-order differentiation can often have detrimental effects while higher odd order differentiation are better, but it is highly dependent upon the model. This change in gradient broke a unit test in matplotlib (for a new feature, so it isn't *that* critical). We didn't notice it at first because we weren't testing numpy 1.9 at the time. I want the feature (I have need for it elsewhere), but I don't want the change in default behavior. Cheers! Ben Root On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 9:31 PM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 2:23 AM, Benjamin Root <ben.root@ou.edu> wrote:
It isn't really a question of accuracy. It breaks unit tests and reproducibility elsewhere. My vote is to revert to the old behavior in 1.9.1.
Why would one want the 2nd order differences at all, if they're not more accurate? Should we just revert the patch entirely? I assumed the change had some benefit...
-- Nathaniel J. Smith Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh http://vorpus.org _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
Hi, On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Benjamin Root <ben.root@ou.edu> wrote:
That isn't what I meant. Higher order doesn't "necessarily" mean more accurate. The results simply have different properties. The user needs to choose the differentiation order that they need. One interesting effect in data assimilation/modeling is that even-order differentiation can often have detrimental effects while higher odd order differentiation are better, but it is highly dependent upon the model.
This change in gradient broke a unit test in matplotlib (for a new feature, so it isn't *that* critical). We didn't notice it at first because we weren't testing numpy 1.9 at the time. I want the feature (I have need for it elsewhere), but I don't want the change in default behavior.
I think it would be a bad idea to revert now. I suspect, if you revert, then a lot of other code will assume the < 1.9.0, >= 1.9.1 behavior. In that case, the code will work as expected most of the time, except when combined with 1.9.0, which could be seriously surprising, and often missed. If you keep the new behavior, then it will be clearer that other code will have to adapt to this change >= 1.9.0 - surprise, but predictable surprise, if you see what I mean... Matthew
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:25 PM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Benjamin Root <ben.root@ou.edu> wrote:
That isn't what I meant. Higher order doesn't "necessarily" mean more accurate. The results simply have different properties. The user needs to choose the differentiation order that they need. One interesting effect in data assimilation/modeling is that even-order differentiation can often have detrimental effects while higher odd order differentiation are better, but it is highly dependent upon the model.
This change in gradient broke a unit test in matplotlib (for a new feature, so it isn't *that* critical). We didn't notice it at first because we weren't testing numpy 1.9 at the time. I want the feature (I have need for it elsewhere), but I don't want the change in default behavior.
I think it would be a bad idea to revert now.
I suspect, if you revert, then a lot of other code will assume the < 1.9.0, >= 1.9.1 behavior. In that case, the code will work as expected most of the time, except when combined with 1.9.0, which could be seriously surprising, and often missed. If you keep the new behavior, then it will be clearer that other code will have to adapt to this change >= 1.9.0 - surprise, but predictable surprise, if you see what I mean...
1.9.1 will be out in a week or so. To be honest, these days I regard the 1.x.0 releases as sort of an advanced release candidate. I think there are just a lot more changes going in between releases and the release gets a lot more testing than the official release candidates. Chuck
I see this as a regression. We don't keep regressions around for backwards compatibility, we fix them. Ben On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 10:25 PM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Benjamin Root <ben.root@ou.edu> wrote:
That isn't what I meant. Higher order doesn't "necessarily" mean more accurate. The results simply have different properties. The user needs to choose the differentiation order that they need. One interesting effect in data assimilation/modeling is that even-order differentiation can often have detrimental effects while higher odd order differentiation are better, but it is highly dependent upon the model.
This change in gradient broke a unit test in matplotlib (for a new feature, so it isn't *that* critical). We didn't notice it at first because we weren't testing numpy 1.9 at the time. I want the feature (I have need for it elsewhere), but I don't want the change in default behavior.
I think it would be a bad idea to revert now.
I suspect, if you revert, then a lot of other code will assume the < 1.9.0, >= 1.9.1 behavior. In that case, the code will work as expected most of the time, except when combined with 1.9.0, which could be seriously surprising, and often missed. If you keep the new behavior, then it will be clearer that other code will have to adapt to this change >= 1.9.0 - surprise, but predictable surprise, if you see what I mean...
Matthew _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
On 17 Oct 2014 02:38, "Benjamin Root" <ben.root@ou.edu> wrote:
That isn't what I meant. Higher order doesn't "necessarily" mean more
accurate. The results simply have different properties. The user needs to choose the differentiation order that they need. One interesting effect in data assimilation/modeling is that even-order differentiation can often have detrimental effects while higher odd order differentiation are better, but it is highly dependent upon the model. To be clear, we aren't talking about different degrees of differentiation, we're talking about different approximations to the first derivative. I just looked up the original pull request and it contains a pretty convincing graph in which the old code has large systematic errors and the new code doesn't: https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/3603 I think the claim is that the old code had approximation error that grows like O(1/n), and the new code has errors like O(1/n**2). (Don't ask me what n is though.)
This change in gradient broke a unit test in matplotlib (for a new feature, so it isn't *that* critical). We didn't notice it at first because we weren't testing numpy 1.9 at the time. I want the feature (I have need for it elsewhere), but I don't want the change in default behavior.
You say it's bad, the original poster says it's good, how are we poor maintainers to know what to do? :-) Can you say any more about why you you prefer so-called lower accuracy approximations here by default? -n
participants (7)
-
Ariel Rokem -
Benjamin Root -
Charles R Harris -
Derek Homeier -
Matthew Brett -
Nathaniel Smith -
Stéfan van der Walt