[Sugar-devel] sugar-pippy dependencies

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> Questions:
> 
> 1) are there lighter-weight alternatives for the most popular uses of
> numpy?

No.  It has no competition, and is used by virtually every program that
uses python and performs array manipulation.  I think it would probably be
part of the python standard library except for political issues (now
mostly resolved).

> 1) how many of the existing activities actually depend on numpy?

Many.  I know that Distance uses it for FFT, for example.  I believe
Calculate requires it as well, because it uses matplotlib for plotting,
and matplotlib requires numpy.

> 2) would it be hard to remove this dependency from them?

Yes.  Numpy provides high-speed math for python.

> 3) Should we define a policy for deprecating components of the Sugar
> Platform in new revisions?  All evolving standards need to find a
> balance between new features with old feature removal to avoid unbounded
> bloat.

Maybe, but numpy is not a good example.  Virtually all science-oriented
programs using python make use of numpy.

> 4) Even if numpy is going to stay around for the Sugar Platform, could
> we remove it from Pippy and other core activities to save resources and
> allow shipping lighter weight live distros?

Only if you don't mind that many Activities will mysteriously fail to launch.

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