Bug#848758: Latest upgrade of Numpy breaks tests of other packages (Was: Bug#848758: python-skbio: FTBFS: Test failures)

[Ole Streicher]

Hi Adrian,

On 21.12.2016 15:29, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 02:05:57PM +0100, Ole Streicher wrote:
>> ...
>> The according functions are since then marked as "deprecated" and issue
>> a warning. Numpy introduced this change with 1.11rc already, which was
>> uploaded to Debian about 6 months ago. After it appears that many
>> packages (als in Debian) have problems with this, they postponed it for
>> another release -- which happens just now.
>> ...
> 
> You are saying you knew for 6 months that many packages in Debian
> have problems with the changes that have just been uploaded.
> 
> Why were no bugs filed a few months before the upload?

Most of my own programs have CI tests which immediately gave a signal. I
forwarded this upstream (mainly as github issues) and took part in the
diskussion between upstream (f.e. astropy) and numpy, so that finally
the decision was made to postpone.

Since I looked only on my own packages, there was no need to file bugs;
especially since the problem was postponed. The upstream maintainers
that were informed took measures in between; therefore I have only one
package (astroml) currently failing.

I had no information about any other package; therefore I couldn't file
bug reports. I can just recommend: If a Python package comes with tests,
use the Debian CI infrastructure for it. This helps a lot as an early
indicator of problems. And since the problems appear on packages with
build time test, I would like to ask back: why don't you use CI?

Best regards

Ole