The focus of this release has mostly been bumping the minimally supported versions of Python and
TensorFlow; and development of `gpflow.experimental.check_shapes`.
Breaking Changes
* Dropped support for Python 3.6. New minimum version is 3.7. (1803, 1859)
* Dropped support for TensorFlow 2.2 and 2.3. New minimum version is 2.4. (1803)
* Removed sub-package `gpflow.utilities.utilities`. It was scheduled for deletion in `2.3.0`.
Use `gpflow.utilities` instead. (1804)
* Removed method `Likelihood.predict_density`, which has been deprecated since March 24, 2020.
(1804)
* Removed property `ScalarLikelihood.num_gauss_hermite_points`, which has been deprecated since
September 30, 2020. (1804)
Known Caveats
* Further improvements to type hints - this may reveal new problems in your code-base if
you use a type checker, such as `mypy`. (1795, 1799, 1802, 1812, 1814, 1816)
Major Features and Improvements
* Significant work on `gpflow.experimental.check_shapes`.
- Support anonymous dimensions. (1796)
- Add a hook to let the user register shapes for custom types. (1798)
- Support `Optional` values. (1797)
- Make it configurable. (1810)
- Add accesors for setting/getting previously applied checks. (1815)
- Much improved error messages. (1822)
- Add support for user notes on shapes. (1836)
- Support checking all elements of collections. (1840)
- Enable stand-alone shape checking, without using a decorator. (1845)
- Support for broadcasts. (1849)
- Add support for checking the shapes of intermediate computations. (1853)
- Support conditional shapes. (1855)
* Significant speed-up of the GPR posterior objects. (1809, 1811)
* Significant improvements to documentation. Note the new home page:
https://gpflow.github.io/GPflow/index.html
(1828, 1829, 1830, 1831, 1833, 1841, 1842, 1856, 1857)
Bug Fixes and Other Changes
* Minor improvement to code clarity (variable scoping) in SVGP model. (1800)
* Improving mathematical formatting in docs (SGPR derivations). (1806)
* Allow anisotropic kernels to have negative length-scales. (1843)
Thanks to our Contributors
This release contains contributions from:
ltiao, uri.granta, frgsimpson, st--, jesnie