[Numpy-discussion] Proposal for changing the names of inverse trigonometrical/hyperbolic functions

[Charles R Harris]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Jarrod Millman <millman at berkeley.edu>wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Francesc Alted <faltet at pytables.org>
> wrote:
> > So, IMHO, I think it would be better to rename the inverse trigonometric
> > functions from ``arc*`` to ``a*`` prefix.  Of course, in order to do
> > that correctly, one should add the new names and add a
> > ``DeprecationWarning`` informing that people should start to use the
> > new names.  After two or three NumPy versions, the old function names
> > can be removed safely.
> >
> > What people think?
>
> +1
> It seems there is a fair amount of favor for adding the new names.
> There is some resistance to removing the old ones.  I would be happy
> to deprecate the old ones, but leave them in until we release a new
> major release (i.e., NumPy 2.0.0).  We could start creating a list of
> API/ABI clean-ups for whenever we find a compelling reason to release
> a new major version.  In the meantime, we can leave the old names in
> and just add a deprecation note to the docs.  Once we are ready to
> release 2.0, we can release a 1.x with deprecation warnings.
>

This still leaves some incompatibilities; code written with the new
functions won't run on older releases of numpy so folks who need portability
will have to use the old names. Note that most Linux distros lag a good ways
behind the latest and greatest numpy. I say to wait for a major release to
add the new names and just leave the old ones alone. This all recalls the
hassle of going through all my old code changing from
Numeric->Numarray->Numpy. It wasn't difficult but it did consume time.

Chuck
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