On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 7:53 PM, Benjamin Root <ben.r...@ou.edu> wrote: > > > 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.
Well, I haven't completely made up my mind yet, will have to do some more prototyping and playing (and potentially have some of my users eat the differently-flavored dogfood), but I'm really not very satisfied with the API at the moment. I'm mainly worried about the abstraction leaking through to pandas users (this is a pretty large group of people judging by # of downloads). The basic position I'm in is that I'm trying to push Python into a new space, namely mainstream data analysis and statistical computing, one that is solidly occupied by R and other such well-known players. My target users are not computer scientists. They are not going to invest in understanding dtypes very deeply or the internals of ndarray. In fact I've spent a great deal of effort making it so that pandas users can be productive and successful while having very little understanding of NumPy. Yes, I essentially "protect" my users from NumPy because using it well requires a certain level of sophistication that I think is unfair to demand of people. This might seem totally bizarre to some of you but it is simply the state of affairs. So far I have been successful because more people are using Python and pandas to do things that they used to do in R. The NA concept in R is dead simple and I don't see why we are incapable of also implementing something that is just as dead simple. To we, the scipy elite let's call us, it seems simple: "oh, just pass an extra flag to all my array constructors!" But this along with the masked array concept is going to have two likely outcomes: 1) Create a great deal more complication in my already very large codebase and/or 2) force pandas users to understand the new masked arrays after I've carefully made it so they can be largely ignorant of NumPy The mostly-NaN-based solution I've cobbled together and tweaked over the last 42 months actually *works really well*, amazingly, with relatively little cost in code complexity. Having found a reasonably stable equilibrium I'm extremely resistant to upset the balance. So I don't know. After watching these threads bounce back and forth I'm frankly not all that hopeful about a solution arising that actually addresses my needs. best, Wes > Cheers! > Ben Root > > _______________________________________________ > NumPy-Discussion mailing list > NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org > http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion > > _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion