On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 14:07, Ondrej Certik <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Brian Granger <[email protected]> > wrote: >> Robert, >> >>>> So should we have all .evalf(), .n() and .N() methods? If someone >>>> expects to have .N() too, we can do that (Sage doesn't have it and no >>>> one seems to complain though). >>> >>> FWIW, I think this kind of consistency is overrated. What looks nice >>> as a method doesn't always look nice as a function. Users coming from >>> other languages expect all kinds of unreasonable things. >> >> For folks like you or I I somewhat agree. As long as I can tab >> complete I can adapt and adjust. But for my students whose only >> computing experience is their iPhone and Internet explorer, this type >> of thing does matter. >> >> Also, while it may be overrated, there is no *harm* in making it more >> consistent. > > When adding these duplicate methods, we should also copy the docstring > automatically, so that it is well documented at one place and the > other methods just copy it somehow.
I would argue that duplicating methods is the worst option for the newbies and is more harmful than leaving things alone. Create the consistent function/method if you must, but deprecate the inconsistent one. Of course, that has costs as well. -- Robert Kern "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -- Umberto Eco -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en.
