[IPython-dev] Progress on module reorganization: backwards compatibility

[Brian Granger]

Hi,

I am making progress on re-organizing all the top-level modules of IPython
into logical sub-packages.  You can monitor my progress here:

https://code.launchpad.net/~ipython-dev/ipython/module-reorg

Overall, I am extremely pleased in how this is going - I think it will make
a huge difference in making IPython easier to understand and develop.  But,
before this branch is merged into trunk, we need to decide how to handle
certain aspects of backwards compatibility.

Certain things in Ipython have become a sort of informal developer API (like
ipapi) by others.  For the most commonly used developer APIs we need to put
in "shims" as Fernando would calls them.  These shims will:

* Temporarily allow people to import the dev API things the old way.
* Print out a warning that the old way is depricated and will go away.

The quesiton is this:  what modules and classes do people think need to be
handled in this way.  I want to keep the number as small as possible (I am
NOT going to shim the whole project!), but I also don't want to leave out
really important things.  In my mind, the goal here is NOT backwards
compatiblity, the goal is to ease the transition to new APIs and package
organization.

I really need to feedback from people like Fernando and Ville on this as
they have the best idea of what things fall into this category.

Cheers,

Brian
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