Re: [matplotlib-devel] MEP10: Modernizing the documentation

[Anton A. <ant...@gm...>]

Michael Droettboom <mdroe@...> writes:

> 
> 
>     
>     Working with the documentation this past week has me a little
>     frustrated with the state of it.  Enough to write a MEP.  
https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/wiki/Mep10
>     In particular, it would be nice to compile a list of concerns about
>     the docstrings and documentation layout so that we can address as
>     much as possible in a single pass.  Also, let me know if there are
>     any relevant PRs and Issues.
>     In particular, I think PR #1032, as it is a large structural
>     reorganization, my dovetail well with the proposed reorganization of
>     the docs.
>     Mike

The proposal looks great. I would like to comment on one issue that it touches, 
and which I found very uncomfortable to work with as a newcomer. I think that 
matplotlib style of using *args and **kwargs for delegation of arguments is a 
rather bad practice, which is hard to solve by just updating documentation. It 
breaks many rules of pep 20: it is implicit, since it is not allowing 
introspection, it is nested, since it always involves nested calls, it allows 
for alternative ways to do things, and I also don't think it's anyhow beautiful.
Most of the things passed with *args, **kwargs can be done with an added 
function call, like:

points = ax.scatter(data)
points.update(*args, **kwargs)

What would be the disadvantage of abolishing this practice?

Anton