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

[Charles R Harris]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
>
> 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.
>

Maybe we could push all the changes off to a Numpy release compatible with
Python 3.0.  Folks will expect a certain amount of hassle when making that
switch.

Re portability: remember how much trouble it was making Numpy work on Python
2.3 after we used features introduced in later versions?

Chuck
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