[Numpy-discussion] Removing datetime support for 1.4.x series ?

[David Cournapeau]

Darren Dale wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Here's the problem that I don't think many people appreciate: logical
>> arguments suck just as much as personal experience in answering these
>> questions. You can make perfectly structured arguments until you are
>> blue in the face, but without real data to premise them on, they are
>> no better than the gut feelings. They can often be significantly worse
>> if the strength of the logic gets confused with the strength of the
>> premise.
> 
> If I recall correctly, the convention of not breaking ABI
> compatibility in minor releases was established in response to the
> last ABI compatibility break. Am I wrong?

That's what I thought as well, but I checked this morning, and the 
actual number used for versioning has not changed since 1.0 (it is 
0x01000009). One issue was that we did not have a way to distinguish API 
change from ABI changes until 1.2.0 IIRC, and that it was relatively 
easy to break the ABI without changing any structure because of the way 
the code generator was coded.

IOW, I don't think that an unchanged number means that we have kept ABI 
compatibility. I would like to think that having more regular binary 
installers helped getting more concern about the issues, but that's 
certainly falls into the gut's feeling department :)

David