Estimagic is now optimagic

[janosg]

We recently renamed estimagic to optimagic but kept the estimagic name as an internal namespace. In this discussion we explain why we did that and how it will affect users. If any questions remain, feel free to ask below.

Why renaming?

The main reason for renaming the package to optimagic is that estimagic gave users the wrong impression that this is mostly a statistical package with some optimization capabilities. While at the very beginning this was the case, we have long transitioned to being first and foremost an optimization package with some additional capabilities for nonlinear estimation.

Why not splitting?

Keeping the estimation functionality as part of optimagic has two advantages:

1. Since optimagic is very actively developed and there are still changes to the minimize and maximize interfaces, it is much easier to keep the estimation functionality aligned with the optimization functionality when they are developed in the same repository.
2. While the optimization part of optimagic is developed more actively, we do not want to give anyone the wrong impression that the estimation functionality is no longer maintained.

How it affects users

Users need to change how they install the package and how they import functions and classes.

Changes in installation

Users need to install optimagic instead of estimagic. This is true for all users, even those who only use the estimation functionality. A FutureWarning is issued for everyone who installs the package as estimagic. Installation instructions can be found here

Changes in imports

All functions and classes related to numerical optimization should now be imported from optimagic instead of estimagic. The complete list of affected functions can be found here. As shown in the tutorials we suggest to use the shortand:

import optimagic as om 

And then writing things like

om.minimize(...)

Importing the optimization functions from estimagic is still possible but deprecated until version 0.6.0. FutureWarnings are issued.

Functions and classes related to estimation can and should still be imported from the estimagic namespace. All such functions can be found here