Current status of sub-packages

Astropy has benefited from the addition of widely tested legacy code, as well as new development, resulting in variations in stability across sub-packages. This document summarizes the current status of the Astropy sub-packages, so that users understand where they might expect changes in future, and which sub-packages they can safely use for production code.

The classification is as follows:

	Planned
	Actively developed, be prepared for possible significant changes.
	Reasonably stable, any significant changes/additions will generally include backwards-compatiblity.
	Mature. Additions/improvements possible, but no major changes planned.
	Pending deprecation. Might be deprecated in a future version.
	Deprecated. Might be removed in a future version.

The current planned and existing sub-packages are:

Sub-Package		Comments
astropy.analytic_functions		New in v1.0 but deprecated in v2.0 and will be removed in future version. Contains blackbody calculations, which have been moved to astropy.modeling.blackbody.
astropy.config		Configuration received major overhaul in v0.4. Since then on, the package has been stable.
astropy.constants		Constants were changed to Quantity objects in v0.2. Since then on, the package has been stable, with occasional additions of new constants.
astropy.convolution		New top-level package in v0.3 (was previously part of astropy.nddata). No major changes since, but possible future additions or improvements.
astropy.coordinates		New in v0.2, major changes in v0.4. Subsequent versions should maintain a stable/backwards-compatible API, following the plan of APE 5. Further major additions/enhancements likely, but with basic framework unchanged.
astropy.cosmology		Incremental improvements since v0.1, but mostly stable API. Pure functional interface deprecated in v0.4.
astropy.io.ascii		Originally developed as asciitable, and has maintained a stable API.
astropy.io.fits		Originally developed as pyfits, and retains an API consistent with the standalone version.
astropy.io.misc		The functionality that is currently present is stable, but this sub-package will likely see major additions in future.
astropy.io.votable		Originally developed as vo.table, and has a stable API.
astropy.modeling		New in v0.3. Major changes in v1.0, significant additions planned. Backwards-compatibility likely to be maintained, but not guaranteed.
astropy.nddata		Significantly revised in v1.0 to implement APE 7. Major changes in the API are not anticipated, broader use may reveal flaws that require API changes.
astropy.stats		Likely to maintain backwards-compatibility, but functionality continually being expanded, so significant additions likely in the future.
astropy.table		Incremental improvements since v0.1, but mostly stable API.
astropy.time		Incremental improvements since v0.1, API likely to remain stable for the foreseeable future.
astropy.units		New in v0.2. Current functionality stable with intent to maintain backwards compatibility. Significant new functionality, in particular to allow dealing with uncertainties, is likely to be added in future versions.
astropy.utils		Contains mostly utilities destined for internal use with other parts of Astropy. Existing functionality generally stable, but regular additions and occasional changes.
astropy.visualization		New in v1.0, and in development.
astropy.visualization.wcsaxes		New in v1.3. Originally developed as wcsaxes and has maintained a stable API.
astropy.samp		Virtual Observatory service access: SAMP. This was renamed from astropy.vo.samp to astropy.samp in 2.0.
astropy.vo.client astropy.vo.validator		Virtual Observatory service access and validation: Simple Cone Search. This is deprecated in Astropy 2.0 and moved to Astroquery 0.3.5.
astropy.wcs		Originally developed as pywcs, and has a stable API for now. However, there are plans to generalize the WCS interface to accommodate non-FITS WCS transformations, and this may lead to small changes in the user interface.