[Numpy-discussion] Numpy 1.7b1 API change cause big trouble

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:05 PM, David Cournapeau <cournape at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Frederic,
>
> On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Frédéric Bastien <nouiz at nouiz.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I spent up to now 2 or 3 days making change to Theano to support numpy
>> 1.7b1. But now, I just find an interface change that will need
>> recoding a function, not just small code change.
>>
>> The problem is that we can't access fields from PyArrayObject anymore,
>> we absolutely must use the old macro/newly function.
>
> Why can't you adress the PyArrayObject anymore ? It is deprecated, but
> the structure itself has not changed. It would certainly be a
> significant issue if that is not possible anymore, as it would be a
> significant API break.
>
>>
>> For the data field, the new function don't allow to set it. There is
>> no function that allow to do this. After so much time spent on small
>> syntactic change, I don't feel making more complex change today.
>>
>> Also, I think there should be a function PyArray_SetDataPtr as similar
>> to PyArray_SetBaseObject.
>>
>> Do you plan to add one? I though that you wanted to force the removing
>> of the old API, but I never hear you wanted to disable this.
>
> It was a design mistake to leak this in the first place, so the end
> goal (not for 1.7), is certainly to 'forbid' access. It is necessary
> to move numpy forward and keep ABI compatibility later on.

Is this still the goal?

Is there a still a role for a simple numpy array structure for maximum
speed of access?

Best,

Matthew