On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 6:45 PM, Wes McKinney <wesmck...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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. > But Wes, what *are* your needs? You keep saying this, but we need examples of how you want to operate and how numpy fails. As to dtypes, internals, and all that, I don't see any of that in the current implementation, unless you mean the maskna and skipna keywords. I believe someone on the previous thread mentioned a way to deal with that. Chuck
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