Description
Should we support older versions of the standard?
I don't think there's any point to supporting 2021.12, since no implementation actually supports it (including array-api-compat). However, as libraries actually start implementing the standard, being able to support multiple versions here could be useful.
For now, we could just tell people to install older versions of array-api-strict. But if people actually test against old versions of the standard, I would much rather just support them at once here than trying to support backport versions.
Plus, the __array_namespace__
method has the version
flag specifically for this sort of thing.
By the way, if you were to ask the same question for array-api-compat, or any actual implementation for that manner, I would say no, unless the standard ends up adopting some serious backwards incompatible changes in some future version. But there could be an argument for the strict implementation to have this.