Re: [Matplotlib-users] matplotlib-grayscale

[Friedrich R. <fri...@gm...>]

2011/10/20 Eric Firing <ef...@ha...>:
> Friedrich (or others),
>
> I hope you will consider the following to be constructive.

I agree :-/  It was very very late in the night [5:30 a.m.], so things
happen, but I think that's no kind of excuse for my rude tone in that
email.  I'm sorry.

> I understand one use case for a gray switch: sometimes one needs to make
> gray versions of plots for formal publication, but one wants to have
> nicer color versions for other purposes.

Exactly, but I believe when we have the functionality the use cases
will just start to emerge - like it always is.

For instance, but this is just guessing, someone came up with the will
to write out his figure in CMYK.  Others might want to turn black into
white and vice versa, keeping other colours invariant.

> What is the use case for grayscale support for parts of the Figure?  It
> seems to me that this requires a much more complex and extensive set of
> changes than a switch for the whole Figure.  Is it really worth it?

I think yes.

It is a bit of effort, yes.

> You indicate that some caching will need to be eliminated.  Is this
> correct?  If your branch causes a significant loss of speed in
> displaying and interacting with large data sets, then I will oppose
> merging it.  Speed matters for a significant fraction of mpl usage.

Correct.  I think it is measurable, but only of O(2).  I believe this
kind of fluctuation can be called noise :-)

The tests cannot esily resolve this because they do everything once.

And with a bit of work I might be able to keep the caching.

> Improvements in mpl architecture that maintain or increase speed, and
> that make it more comprehensible, maintainable, and capable, are
> certainly welcome.  Color handling has grown organically, often
> bedeviled by that pesky alpha, and I have no doubt that it could be
> cleaned up and improved.

I can capably only speak of colors.py and some conversion functions
somewhere else.  I've noticed a rather small-grained approach.  I
tried to unify things.

But this you already said.

cu,
Friedrich