Re: [matplotlib-devel] An easier way to create figure and group of axes; useful?

[John H. <jd...@gm...>]

On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Fernando Perez <fpe...@gm...> wrote:

>> This is a worthy goal.    One use case I would like to see supported
>> is the sharex/sharey args::
> Sheesh, some people really want everything :)

Yes, you should know better by now than to propose a minor enhancement....

Another thought about the interface.  How about *just* returning the
figure instance, and let the users simply index into the axes list.
Then they can have their 0 based indexing because it is a python
list::

  fig =  fig_subplot((2,1), sharex=1)
  fig.axes[0].plot(...)
  fig.axes[1].scatter(...)

mpl is creating this axes list anyway....  I'm also fine with your
implementation -- just a suggestion.

One other thing: I don't think a tuple is best for the axes
dimensionality.  We always require two and exactly two shape arguments
(numrows, numcols) so we don't need the flexibility of the tuple in
the way that numpy.zeros does.  And it is easier to type::

  fig_subplot(2, 1, sharex=1)

than::

  fig_subplot((2,1), sharex=1)

As the world master of keystroke efficiency, I would think you would
appreciate the savings!  But again, if you prefer the tuple, I don't
have a problem with it.  It does have the advantage of visually
suggesting a single shape argument.

JDH