... for methods where a and b are both input arrays (of course there may be other parameters but they are omitted here) and particularly when they are to be compared in some manner, as is the case for equals or allclose
This is a potential API extension proposed (by @davidhassell) to provide an API more consistent with NumPy, Dask and other libraries covered by the Python Array API Standard, where the former prescription is the standard, but there are arguments for either approach we both think.