matplotlib-users

[Matplotlib-users] Re: matlab (TM)

[Jon P. <Jon...@no...>]

Actually, since it's the package that most users probably actually want, 
would it be more suitable to move matplotlib.matlab into matplotlib 
itself? Then we could simply

import matplotlib

Obviously that would mix the main user routines (plot()...) with the 
more administrative namespace (get_backend(), is_interactive()...) and 
maybe you'd want to move those into a separate (always imported) 
subpackage along the lines of matplotlib.res?

Just an idea.
Jon

>To: mat...@li...
>From: John Hunter <jdh...@ac...>
>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:23:04 -0600
>Subject: [Matplotlib-users] matlab (TM)
>
>
>I'm concerned that at some point down the road, The Mathworks may not
>like the fact that matplotlib uses the name matlab, which is
>trademarked.  I think I'll rename the matlab interface to pylab.  In
>some sense, this name is more appropriate any way, because I'd like to
>incorporate the best features of IDL, gnuplot and python, while still
>retaining and enhancing core matlab compatibility.  I emailed Travis,
>who previously used pylab.sf.net before it became part of scipy, and
>he didn't have a problem with our using this name.  And Fernando
>already uses pylab as the option to ipython to make ipython support
>matplotlib.
>
>So my plan is to change the name of the matplotlib.matlab module to
>matplotlib.pylab, but wanted propose this here first since this will
>effect almost every script.  It should be an easy search and replace
>operation, and I'll probably post a little python script to
>recursively replace all matplotlib.matlab references in a given
>directory with matplotlib.pylab, since I have a few directories myself
>that will need to be renamed.
>
>Comments or objections welcome.
>
>JDH
>


-- 
Jon Peirce
http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/jwp/


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Re: [Matplotlib-users] Re: matlab (TM)

[Darren D. <dd...@co...>]

> Actually, since it's the package that most users probably actually want,
> would it be more suitable to move matplotlib.matlab into matplotlib
> itself? Then we could simply
>
> import matplotlib
>
> Obviously that would mix the main user routines (plot()...) with the
> more administrative namespace (get_backend(), is_interactive()...) and
> maybe you'd want to move those into a separate (always imported)
> subpackage along the lines of matplotlib.res?
>
> Just an idea.
> Jon
>

That would introduce some problems if the user wanted to change rc settings, 
which currently has to be done before importing matplotlib.matlab.

-- 

Darren

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Re: matlab (TM)

[Chris B. <Chr...@no...>]

Jon Peirce wrote:
> Actually, since it's the package that most users probably actually want, 

most, maybe, but not all.

> would it be more suitable to move matplotlib.matlab into matplotlib 
> itself? Then we could simply
> 
> import matplotlib

please don't' do that. I haven't done much with it yet, but I'm much 
more interested in using the pythonesque api than the matlabesque one. 
I'm not using Matlab for a reason.

-Chris

-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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Chr...@no...

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Re: matlab (TM)

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

>>>>> "Jon" == Jon Peirce <Jon...@no...> writes:

    Jon> Actually, since it's the package that most users probably
    Jon> actually want, would it be more suitable to move
    Jon> matplotlib.matlab into matplotlib itself? Then we could
    Jon> simply

    Jon> import matplotlib

    Jon> Obviously that would mix the main user routines (plot()...)
    Jon> with the more administrative namespace (get_backend(),
    Jon> is_interactive()...) and maybe you'd want to move those into
    Jon> a separate (always imported) subpackage along the lines of
    Jon> matplotlib.res?

It is technically possible to reorganize the code to support this, but
it would break a lot of code in a nontrivial way.  While it is trivial
to search and replace instances of 'from matplotlib.matlab' with 'from
matplotlib.pylab' and so on, it would not be trivial to port scripts
that were using the matplotlib admin funcs after the kind of
reorganization this would entail.

But your post did give me an idea that might satisfy everyone and
provide the ease of use your idea suggests.  If we migrate
matplotlib.matlab to matplotlib.pylab as discussed, *and* add an
additional file pylab.py that resides in site-packages and is a one
liner

  from matplotlib.pylab import * 

then we preserve the easy conversion from old namespace to new
namespace while making it easy for script writers to do

  from pylab import *

Plea to distutils gurus: if you can figure out a way in the current
matplotlib setup.py setup to get a module named pylab.py into
site-packages, please advise!  The current module layout is somewhat
complicated and already stretches my distutils capabilities.

Of course if you were using Fernando's wonderful pylab feature in
ipython, it would be a trifle concern anyhow, since the import is done
automagically.

JDH

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Re: matlab (TM)

[Andrew S. <str...@as...>]

John Hunter wrote:

>Plea to distutils gurus: if you can figure out a way in the current
>matplotlib setup.py setup to get a module named pylab.py into
>site-packages, please advise!  The current module layout is somewhat
>complicated and already stretches my distutils capabilities.
>  
>

I wouldn't call myself a distutils guru, but is this what you mean?

#!/usr/bin/env python
from distutils.core import setup

setup(py_modules=['pylab'],
      package_dir = {'':'path/to/where/pylab.py/source/is/located'})