[Numpy-discussion] Boolean binary '-' operator

[Julian Taylor]

On 25.06.2017 18:45, Stefan van der Walt wrote:
> Hi Chuck
> 
> On Sun, Jun 25, 2017, at 09:32, Charles R Harris wrote:
>> The boolean binary '-' operator was deprecated back in NumPy 1.9 and
>> changed to an error in 1.13. This caused a number of failures in
>> downstream projects. The choices now are to continue the deprecation
>> for another couple of releases, or simply give up on the change. For
>> booleans,  `a - b` was implemented as `a xor b`, which leads to the
>> somewhat unexpected identity `a - b == b - a`, but it is a handy
>> operator that allows simplification of some functions, `numpy.diff`
>> among therm. At this point I'm inclined to give up on the deprecation
>> and retain the old behavior. It is a bit impure but perhaps we can
>> consider it a feature rather than a bug.
> 
> What was the original motivation behind the deprecation?  `xor` seems
> like exactly what one would expect when subtracting boolean arrays.
> 
> But, in principle, I'm not against the deprecation (we've had to fix a
> few problems that arose in skimage, but nothing big).
> 
> Stéfan
> 
> 

I am against this deprecation for apparently cosmetic reasons.
Is there any practical drawback in that it makes subtraction commutative
for booleans?

numpy should not be imposing change of style when the existing sub par
historical style does not cause actual bugs.

While I don't like it I can accept a deprecation warning that will never
be acted upon.