slitsey edited a comment on issue #11466: [MXNET-560] Add temperature parameter 
in Softmax operator
URL: https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/pull/11466#issuecomment-403158593
 
 
   @haojin2 That makes sense. To play devil's advocate, I would argue that 
having six different variations of softmax is a bit ridiculous, and more 
confusing than adding a single parameter to existing functions. Since the 
default behavior is unchanged, most users won't even know the difference from a 
UX perspective. You can't create a new function every time someone wants to add 
a new feature to an existing function; that kind of function proliferation 
generates far more user confusion than adding a parameter they can safely 
ignore.
   
   The performance regression argument is much more significant. However, while 
I'm not an expert on this, I suspect that adding an if statement to a 
function's execution is about as minimal a performance drop as you can get. 
(Especially given that's its just deciding whether or not to perform a floating 
point division operation!) Most other modifications would have a more 
substantial impact. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken on this point.
   
   Finally, making an enhancement to an important function like softmax can 
itself induce use of that feature. I wouldn't be surprised if the fraction of 
softmax users that employ this feature ends up being higher than one may think, 
given that it's a hyperparameter applicable to most use cases that tends to be 
ignored only due to ignorance or to maintain simplicity.
   
   Anyway, I'll let everyone else weigh in. For my own use case, having new 
SoftmaxWithTemperature functions would be fine, but I suspect for the library 
as a whole, it may be better to incorporate the change within the existing 
functions.

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