On Friday, October 28, 2011, Matthew Brett <matthew.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Ralf Gommers > <ralf.gomm...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> >> >> On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 12:37 AM, Matthew Brett <matthew.br...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Charles R Harris >>> <charlesr.har...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> > >>> > >>> > On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 3:56 PM, Matthew Brett < matthew.br...@gmail.com> >>> > wrote: >>> >> >>> >> Hi, >>> >> >>> >> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:43 PM, Matthew Brett >>> >> <matthew.br...@gmail.com> >>> >> wrote: >>> >> > Hi, >>> >> > >>> >> > On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Charles R Harris >>> >> > <charlesr.har...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >> >> >>> >> >> >>> >> >> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Nathaniel Smith <n...@pobox.com> >>> >> >> wrote: >>> >> >>> >>> >> >>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 2:56 PM, Travis Oliphant >>> >> >>> <oliph...@enthought.com> >>> >> >>> wrote: >>> >> >>> > I think Nathaniel and Matthew provided very >>> >> >>> > specific feedback that was helpful in understanding other >>> >> >>> > perspectives >>> >> >>> > of a >>> >> >>> > difficult problem. In particular, I really wanted >>> >> >>> > bit-patterns >>> >> >>> > implemented. However, I also understand that Mark did quite a >>> >> >>> > bit >>> >> >>> > of >>> >> >>> > work >>> >> >>> > and altered his original designs quite a bit in response to >>> >> >>> > community >>> >> >>> > feedback. I wasn't a major part of the pull request discussion, >>> >> >>> > nor >>> >> >>> > did I >>> >> >>> > merge the changes, but I support Charles if he reviewed the code >>> >> >>> > and >>> >> >>> > felt >>> >> >>> > like it was the right thing to do. I likely would have done the >>> >> >>> > same >>> >> >>> > thing >>> >> >>> > rather than let Mark Wiebe's work languish. >>> >> >>> >>> >> >>> My connectivity is spotty this week, so I'll stay out of the >>> >> >>> technical >>> >> >>> discussion for now, but I want to share a story. >>> >> >>> >>> >> >>> Maybe a year ago now, Jonathan Taylor and I were debating what the >>> >> >>> best API for describing statistical models would be -- whether we >>> >> >>> wanted something like R's "formulas" (which I supported), or >>> >> >>> another >>> >> >>> approach based on sympy (his idea). To summarize, I thought his API >>> >> >>> was confusing, pointlessly complicated, and didn't actually solve >>> >> >>> the >>> >> >>> problem; he thought R-style formulas were superficially simpler but >>> >> >>> hopelessly confused and inconsistent underneath. Now, obviously, I >>> >> >>> was >>> >> >>> right and he was wrong. Well, obvious to me, anyway... ;-) But it >>> >> >>> wasn't like I could just wave a wand and make his arguments go >>> >> >>> away, >>> >> >>> no I should point out that the implementation hasn't - as far as I can > see - changed the discussion. The discussion was about the API. > Implementations are useful for agreed APIs because they can point out > where the API does not make sense or cannot be implemented. In this > case, the API Mark said he was going to implement - he did implement - > at least as far as I can see. Again, I'm happy to be corrected. > >>> In saying that we are insisting on our way, you are saying, implicitly, 'I >>> am not going to negotiate'. >> >> That is only your interpretation. The observation that Mark compromised >> quite a bit while you didn't seems largely correct to me. > > The problem here stems from our inability to work towards agreement, > rather than standing on set positions. I set out what changes I think > would make the current implementation OK. Can we please, please have > a discussion about those points instead of trying to argue about who > has given more ground. > >> That commitment would of course be good. However, even if that were possible >> before writing code and everyone agreed that the ideas of you and Nathaniel >> should be implemented in full, it's still not clear that either of you would >> be willing to write any code. Agreement without code still doesn't help us >> very much. > > I'm going to return to Nathaniel's point - it is a highly valuable > thing to set ourselves the target of resolving substantial discussions > by consensus. The route you are endorsing here is 'implementor > wins'. We don't need to do it that way. We're a mature sensible > bunch of adults who can talk out the issues until we agree they are > ready for implementation, and then implement. That's all Nathaniel is > saying. I think he's obviously right, and I'm sad that it isn't as > clear to y'all as it is to me. > > Best, > > Matthew >
Everyone, can we please not do this?! I had enough of adults doing finger pointing back over the summer during the whole debt ceiling debate. I think we can all agree that we are better than the US congress? Forget about rudeness or decision processes. I will start by saying that I am willing to separate ignore and absent, but only on the write side of things. On read, I want a single way to identify the missing values. I also want only a single way to perform calculations (either skip or propagate). An indicator of success would be that people stop using NaNs and magic numbers (-9999, anyone?) and we could even deprecate nansum(), or at least strongly suggest in its docs to use NA. Cheers! Ben Root
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