Re: [matplotlib-devel] my $0.02 on MEP13

[Todd <tod...@gm...>]

On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 2:40 AM, Antony Lee <ant...@be...> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I saw that a discussion started on transitioning to the use of properties
> instead of explicit getters and setters, which seems like a very good idea
> to me... so I thought this would be a good idea to get involved in
> matplotlib-devel :)
>
> Right now an issue raised is what to do with set_* that take multiple
> arguments.  Taking set_title, which takes both positional and keyword
> arguments, as an example, my idea would be to do
>
> ax.title = "A title"
> ax.title.fontdict = fontdict
>
> Basically, a property "foo" (in the matplotlib meaning of the word)
> becomes a descriptor with __get__ => get_foo and __set__ => set_foo, and
> keyword arguments to the old property setter become themselves descriptors
> on that descriptor.
>
> Antony
>
>
I think this makes it over-complicated.  It is much simpler, more explicit,
and more consistent to have two properties here, one that only deals with a
string, and a second that only deals with a text object.  Then you can do
something like (where titletext returns the text object):

ax.titletext.fontdict

That way we automatically get what you want without any additional work or
fancy tricks in a much cleaner, more explicit, and more predictable manner.