[Numpy-discussion] np.{bool,float,int} deprecation

[Sebastian Berg]

On Sat, 2020-12-05 at 20:12 -0700, Charles R Harris wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 4:31 PM Juan Nunez-Iglesias <jni at fastmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > At the prodding [1] of Sebastian, I’m starting a discussion on the
> > decision to deprecate np.{bool,float,int}. This deprecation broke
> > our
> > prerelease testing in scikit-image (which, hooray for rcs!), and
> > resulted
> > in a large amount of code churn to fix [2].
> > 
> > To be honest, I do think *some* sort of deprecation is needed,
> > because for
> > the longest time I thought that np.float was what np.float_
> > actually is. I
> > think it would be worthwhile to move to *that*, though it’s an even
> > more
> > invasive deprecation than the currently proposed one. Writing `x =
> > np.zeros(5, dtype=int)` is somewhat magical, because someone with a
> > strict
> > typing mindset (there’s an increasing number!) might expect that
> > this is an
> > array of pointers to Python ints. This is why I’ve always preferred
> > to
> > write `dtype=np.int`, resulting in the current code churn.
> > 
> > I don’t know what the best answer is, just sparking the discussion
> > Sebastian wants to see. ;) For skimage we’ve already merged a fix
> > (even if
> > it is one of dubious quality, as Stéfan points out [3] ;), so I
> > don’t have
> > too much stake in the outcome.
> > 
> > Juan.
> > 
> > [1]:
> > https://github.com/scikit-image/scikit-image/pull/5103#issuecomment-739334463
> > [2]: https://github.com/scikit-image/scikit-image/pull/5103
> > [3]:
> > https://github.com/scikit-image/scikit-image/pull/5103#issuecomment-739368765
> > 
> 
> I checked pandas and astropy and both have several uses of the
> deprecated
> types but should be easy to fix. I suppose the question is if we want
> to
> make them fix things *right now* :)
> 


The reason why I thought it might be good to bring this up again is
that I am not sure clear on how painful the deprecation is; which
should be weighed against the benefit.  And the benefit here is only
moderate.

Thus, with the things now in and a few more people exposed to it, if
anyone thinks its a bad idea or that we should delay, I am all ears.

Cheers,

Sebastian


> Chuck
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