Google is nice and I certainly use it, but I also often use - IPython autocomplete - Browsing the file system and when they work, they are less of a distraction than Google.
So having *casual user discoverable* categories really is an actual benefit. Of course breakage is cost, so changes should happen only if the resulting categories actually make things easier to discover, and should be concentrated into few releases so stuff isn't breaking all the time. Another "not real" benefit is that stuff that "doesn't make a huge amount of sense" just looks bad, makes the project look bad, and discourages users. At least IMHO. For me at least "metrics" is a pretty confusing name, just because of the ambiguity mentioned in this thread. How about "quality_measures" and "distance_measures"? Python has import XYZ as X, so are long names still bad? Daniel On 10/14/2014 11:08 PM, Gael Varoquaux wrote: > On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 06:53:35AM +1100, Robert Layton wrote: >> Currently the word "metrics" is overloaded with at least two type of >> algorithms in that module. The first is evaluation metrics and the >> second is functions dealing with distance metrics. > > Please, let's just try as much as possible to avoid such changes. > > The goal of such a change is to make things prettier, or more logical, > according to a certain logic. The benefit is that, to certain, it will > make more sens. What's important to keep in mind, is that most users > don't understand the fine details of the acceptance of the names, and > that none of the module names make a huge amount of sens. Documentation > and Google searchs is what really sorts users out. > > By changing module names, or any kind of API, we are making these Google > searchs unreliable, so we are actually making it harder for the users. > > In addition, we are breaking people's code. Yes we have a deprecation > cycle, but it's costly for everybody to follow our changes. > > Thus, for an API change (and that's an API change), there needs to be > clear benefits, IMHO. > > Gaël > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. > Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. > Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. > Take corrective actions from your mobile device. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho > _______________________________________________ > Scikit-learn-general mailing list > Scikit-learn-general@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/scikit-learn-general > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho _______________________________________________ Scikit-learn-general mailing list Scikit-learn-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/scikit-learn-general
