Change order of arguments in soundfile.write()

[mgeier]

We had some discussions in the past about argument ordering (#54, #78), but I don't think we really talked about the order of the filename and the array argument in soundfile.write().

I always thought it would make sense to write the array first and the filename later.
I would ask "What?" first, before I want to know "Where?".
It also makes some kind of sense if you think about the array as an "input" argument and the filename as an "output" argument. I'd normally mention the input arguments before the output arguments.

However, while I'm using the function, I come to think more and more that the order actually seems strange.
What bugged me in the beginning, is that the array and its sample rate (which belong together), are actually separated in the call (and the sample rate is obligatory!):

sf.write(data, 'my_audio_file.wav', fs)

Then I looked around and found that it's actually quite common to mention the file name first, e.g.:
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.savetxt.html
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.save.html
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.io.wavfile.write.html#scipy.io.wavfile.write
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.io.savemat.html
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.io.mmwrite.html#scipy.io.mmwrite

I hereby suggest that we change the order to:

sf.write('my_audio_file.wav', data, fs)

Apart from it being the way NumPy and SciPy do it, it would also be more consistent to (and compatible to) soundfile.read(), where the array and the sample rate are returned right next to each other.

Are there any counter-examples that mention the data to be saved before the file name?
Are there any other arguments?

[bastibe]

I noticed that, too, and agree with your assessment.

[mgeier]

OK, then I suggest that we release 0.7.1 first (and probably 0.7.2?) and implement the current issue afterwards, for realease of 0.8.0.

[mgeier]

Alternatively, we can just skip 0.7.1 and go directly to 0.8.0 ...?

[bastibe]

We have a bunch of changes again. Let's skip 0.7.1 and go straight to 0.8.0

[mgeier]

In the past, I came up with breaking changes right after a release (e.g. #102) ...

I think it would be good to release 0.7.1 very soon, then we should think very hard if there is anything that can be improved by a breaking change, and afterwards release 0.8.0 with all breaking changes.
If we're lucky, this might become the last release with breaking changes in a long time (but I wouldn't guarantee it ...).

[bastibe]

Let's do this!

[mgeier]

I've added a commit (8838390) that switches the two arguments.

[bastibe]

Looks innocuous enough.