On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Michael Droettboom <md...@stsci.edu> wrote:
> This is why I suggested that the best way forward is to implement some sort
> of easy styling functionality (like what Tony Yu has submitted in #2236,
> though I haven't had a chance to look at it yet), and make it explicit for
> the user to select a new style. This could be either by adding a new line
> to the top of the plotting script, or adding a single switch in the global
> matplotlibrc file. But there needs to be an explicit turning on of this.
Are you saying that the defaults can't change (i.e., any changes must
be opt-in), or just that there needs to be some transition period
before the defaults can change and a simple way to opt out afterwards?
I agree with the latter :-).
I have mixed feelings about a full "styling system" though, since, how
many coherent "styles" for plots are there? If we provide a menu of
plot styles right in the main documentation then it seems like it
would just end up being an excuse for people to procrastinate playing
with the different settings, and increase the number of manuscripts I
read that have baroque and poorly chosen colormaps, plots that use the
"ggplot as drawn by xkcd" style, etc. And what value would it really
add? IMO we have a responsibility to nudge users towards making good
plots, and that means having good defaults, and perhaps also means
encouraging people to use them instead of just picking things that
optimize some vague aesthetic judgement at 2am before the submission
deadline...
How about
mpl.approximately_emulate(<version number>)
which sets the defaults to whatever version of matplotlib is named?
That could be used a-priori by people who want to future-proof their
scripts, is very easy to add after the fact if you upgrade matplotlib
and discover some plot of yours has been broken, and also encompasses
the "future" functionality (you could ask your current matplotlib to
emulate the next version, if it knows how).
The advantage of a limited API that just takes a version number is not
just that it's simpler on the backend (no need for a system to name
and discover styles, etc. etc.), but it can also easily encapsulate
knowledge like "the defaults were the same from 0.99 through 1.2, so
if anything in that range is requested use *this* file, but then in
1.3...". This means that if a user knows that their plot worked on 1.1
but broke on 1.4, they don't have to care -- they can just say
mpl.approximately_emulate("1.1")
instead of having to somehow figure out that the right call is:
mpl.style("0.99-through-1.2")
-n
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