[Numpy-discussion] [ANN] NumPy 0.9.6 released

[Colin J. Williams]

I suggest putting the compatibility stuff in a separate module so that 
the user can import what he needs, instead of having the whole thing in 
one bundle. 

Over time, the separate module will get less use.  For some, it will 
never be used.

Colin W.
Travis Oliphant wrote:

> Fernando Perez wrote:
>
>> Travis Oliphant wrote:
>>
>>> This post is to announce the release of NumPy 0.9.6 which fixes some 
>>> important bugs and has several speed improvments.
>>
>>
>>
>> Just curious about the svd/singular... pair:
>>
>> In [2]: numpy.linalg.singular_value_decomposition??
>> Definition:     numpy.linalg.singular_value_decomposition(A, 
>> full_matrices=0)
>> Source:
>> def singular_value_decomposition(A, full_matrices=0):
>>     return svd(A, full_matrices)
>>
>>
>> In [3]: numpy.linalg.svd?
>> Definition:     numpy.linalg.svd(a, full_matrices=1)
>>
>>
>> Do we really need both spellings to be different just on the default 
>> of the full_matrices flag?  It seems to me like the kind of 
>> unnecessary special-casing that just forces people to remember little 
>> details without a clear benefit.  If we want a long-spelling form, it 
>> would be cheaper to simply alias the name with a module-level
>>
>> singular_value_decomposition = svd
>>
>> so the same /object/ is referred to via both names.
>>
>> Perhaps I'm missing the blindingly obvious solid reason, but if this  
>> is just historical accident, I'd vote for unifying the two simply as 
>> spelling variants.  I think the flipped default is more 
>> confusion-prone than beneficial.
>
>
> Backward compatibility.
> I don't like the singular_value_decomposition spelling but that was in 
> Numeric (with the default given).  So, it is provided to aid in 
> code-porting.
>
> But, I think most people who compute svd expect it to produce 
> full_matrices.   Thus, the svd spelling.
>
> We make somebody unhappy either way I think.  If we change anything, I 
> would vote for changing singular_value_decomposition and adding 
> something to convert_code to write any old code using full arguments.
>
> -Travis
>
>
>
>
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