MAINT: `differentiate.differentiate`: rename function to `derivative`

Contributor & Development Discussion scipy
1

The new scipy.differentiate sub-package has a function differentiate for elementwise numerical differentiation. gh-21636 proposes to rename this function to derivative because:

  • The noun derivative fits better next to the nouns jacobian and hessian (the other functions in the sub-package),
  • derivative may be less likely (n=2) to be confused with other (e.g. multivariate) differentiation operations,
  • derivative is shorter, and
  • differentiate.differentiate sounds repetitive.

If you’re interested, please join the conversation in gh-21636.
Thanks!
Matt