RFC: split docscrape out into separate repo

[lucascolley]

SciPy has a one-to-one copy of https://github.com/numpy/numpydoc/blob/main/numpydoc/docscrape.py at https://github.com/scipy/scipy/blob/main/scipy/_lib/_docscrape.py. From the file, we use:

• ClassDoc
• NumpyDocString
• FunctionDoc
• Parameter

The use is exclusive to a deprecation utility and some places in scipy.stats.

It seems overkill to add the entirety of numpydoc as a submodule, such that keeping the current carbon copy is probably preferable.

Would it be feasible, though, for this file to be maintained separately as numpy/docscrape? On the one hand, this would reduce duplication, as we could add that as a submodule in SciPy. On the other hand, maybe this would require an unwarranted amount of maintenance/release effort, and we are better off living with the current state of things.

Thoughts?

x-ref scipy/scipy#21232

[larsoner]

It seems overkill to add the entirety of numpydoc as a submodule, such that keeping the current carbon copy is probably preferable.

Would it be possible to add numpydoc as a dependency, or is that option off the table?

[lucascolley]

Would it be possible to add numpydoc as a dependency, or is that option off the table?

I don't know, I don't think anyone has proposed adding a new required runtime dependency to SciPy since I have been working on the project.

I'm also not sure whether there would be any way to make the docscrape use build-time only via code generation, I haven't taken a look at what exactly the code using it is doing.