Re: [matplotlib-devel] pyplot-OO convergence

[Till S. <til...@ze...>]

One point which is often neglected while discussing
oo- vs the pyplot-api is that today introspection tools
quite often fail to work with mpl-oo but are
perfectly fine with the pyplot module. E.g. if i am writing
some kind of helper oder plotting function taking ax, one
gets no auto-completion nor docstrings. I always have to use
a interactive console to search for them or just type in
the corresponding pyplot command for the function
signature.
Note that this is not matplotlibs fault, but
another reason while beginners may prefer the pyplot-interface:
Easier access to docstrings and available plotting functions.

This is also why i am a bit wary of using properties in matplotlib and
i don't think they are a good fit most of the time. Documenting
them is hard, discoverablity is also worse. And most setter methods in
mpl have very useful kwargs, something which is not doable with
properties.