Re-Introduce SAM-kNN Classifier

[jvaquet]

Hello,
is there any interest in re-introducing the SAM-kNN Classifier to river?
It used to be part of river up to it's deprecation in version 0.11.0 and subsequent removal in 0.12.0. I worked a lot with a lot it in recent times, and I think having it as a part of river would be a great way to make it more accessible for everyone.
If there is interest, I'd be happy to contribute the implementation myself.

That said, what was the reason for removing SAM-kNN in 0.12.0 and does this reason persist to hinder a possible re-introduction?

[smastelini]

Hi @jvaquet. Thanks for you interest on River and SAM-kNN. The main reason for its removal was because this class wrapped legacy C++ code inherited from scikit-multiflow. The original C++ code did not adhere to many of River's conventions about data, sparsity, and other aspects and, at the time, we did not have bandwidth in the development team to delve in the specifics of this algorithm and re-implement it.

That said, if you are interested in creating a fresh implementation better suited for River, that would be great!

[jvaquet]

Thanks for the quick reply! Ditching the legacy C++ code sounds like a good reason to drop support.
With the interest in a new implementation confirmed I'll get on that soon 👍