[Numpy-discussion] Proposal to accept NEP-18, __array_function__ protocol

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 02:44 Matti Picus <matti.picus at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 29/08/18 10:37, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
> > it's easy to imagine scenarios where the
> > people being broken aren't the ones who had a chance to read the docs
> > – e.g. if a major package starts relying on __array_function__, then
> > it's all*their*  users who we'd be breaking, even though they had
> > nothing to do with it.
> This is a packaging problem. This proposal is intended for use by other
> "major packages", not so much for end-users. We would have much more
> trouble if we were proposing a broad change to something like indexing
> or the random number module (see those NEPs). If we break one of those
> major packages, it is on them to pin the version of NumPy they can work
> with. In my opinion very few end users will be implementing their own
> ndarray classes with `__array_function__`. While we will get issue
> reports, we can handle them much as we do the MKL or OpenBLAS ones -
> pinpoint the problem and urge users to complain to those packages.
>
> Other than adding a warning, I am not sure what the concrete proposal is
> here. To not accept the NEP?
>

The proposal is just that while the NEP is considered experimental and
provisional, we should use some kind of technical measures to discourage
use in a non-experimental settings. We want to stay in control of when it
escapes the lab, and docs alone, or trivially disableable messages, aren't
a very effective way to do that.

-n

>
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