On 08/26/2012 05:33 AM, Anton Akhmerov wrote: > Michael Droettboom <mdroe@...> writes: > >> >> >> Working with the documentation this past week has me a little >> frustrated with the state of it. Enough to write a MEP. > https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/wiki/Mep10 >> In particular, it would be nice to compile a list of concerns about >> the docstrings and documentation layout so that we can address as >> much as possible in a single pass. Also, let me know if there are >> any relevant PRs and Issues. >> In particular, I think PR #1032, as it is a large structural >> reorganization, my dovetail well with the proposed reorganization of >> the docs. >> Mike > The proposal looks great. I would like to comment on one issue that it > touches, > and which I found very uncomfortable to work with as a newcomer. I think that > matplotlib style of using *args and **kwargs for delegation of arguments is a > rather bad practice, which is hard to solve by just updating documentation. It > breaks many rules of pep 20: it is implicit, since it is not allowing > introspection, it is nested, since it always involves nested calls, it allows > for alternative ways to do things, and I also don't think it's anyhow > beautiful. > Most of the things passed with *args, **kwargs can be done with an added > function call, like: > > points = ax.scatter(data) > points.update(*args, **kwargs) > > What would be the disadvantage of abolishing this practice? > I understand the comments about the difficulty of introspection. The reason it works the way it does is so that additional parameters can be added to the artist layer without needing to update every single plotting function. A real world example of this is when hatching was added -- that feature only had to be added in one place and most artists were able to use it. In that sense, I think this approach is very beautiful in terms of code maintainability and extensibility.
I'm willing to consider this if there's a better suggestion, but I think pushing what is currently a single function call for the user in to two is not going to fly. An alternative might be to have "style" objects that are passed to the plotting functions, and these style objects could grow new features over time. But that's going to break a lot of backward compatibility, of course. Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
