PlasmaPy / PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy

Deprecate our magnetostatics functionality?

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breaking change proposal
Dominant language
Python
Stars
711
Forks
375
Avg merge
3h 2m
Merged PRs (30d)
8

Description

Last telecon, myself, @rocco8773 and @namurphy discussed that our magnetostatics functionality, while okay-ish, is essentially a subset of functionality contained in MagpyLib. We'd like to trim some of the less-used and less maintained functionality the package , so that one seems like a prime candidate.

Things to consider:

  • IIRC, MagpyLib gives outputs in mT. One thing we considered during the telecon was to monkeypatch/provide shims on top of their functionality that makes stuff return astropy Quantities.
  • should we wire the existing magnetostatics functionality to stuff in MagpyLib, or just deprecate it and tell users to use MagpyLib directly instead?

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating PlasmaPy’s existing magnetostatics functionality and reviewing MagpyLib’s documentation. Compare direct use with wiring or deprecation, including the noted mT-to-astropy Quantity compatibility question. Done means the project has a decided migration path and the corresponding behavior is documented and implemented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
backend
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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