Re: [matplotlib-devel] matplotlib Hangout today at 14:00 UTC (10:00am ET)

[Benjamin R. <ben...@ou...>]

Daniele,

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 8:45 AM, Daniele Nicolodi <da...@gr...>wrote:

> On 24/10/2013 21:26, Paul Ivanov wrote:
> > One quick reply:
> >
> > Daniele Nicolodi, on 2013-10-24 21:03,  wrote:
> >> One thing I dislike is, for example, the add_subplot() method:
> >>
> >> f = plt.figure()
> >> a = f.add_subplot(111)
> >> a.plot(x, y)
> >>
> >> it feels completely out of place (why I need to add a subplot if the
> >> only thing I want to do is to create a figure with a single plot in it?)
> >> and kind of magic (what is the number 111?).
> >
> >   f, a = plt.subplots()
> >   a.plot(x, y)
>
> That's better, however to create _sub_ plots to have a single plot into
> a figure still feels weird,


It doesn't feel weird. It feels generalized. It is the same way to add any
number of plots, regardless if it is just one, or twenty. If you don't want
to do it that way, you can just simply do:

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.gca()  # "get current axes" automatically creates an axes if one
doesn't exist already

You also have
http://matplotlib.org/api/figure_api.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure.add_axes


> also I would expect it to be a method of the
> Figure class and not a top level function.


It does:
http://matplotlib.org/api/figure_api.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure.add_subplot
This is *the* function that does axes creation for a figure, whether it is
one, or many.



>  Furthermore, most
> documentation refers to add_subplot() and not subplots() which has a
> more understandable function signature.
>
>
subplots() is a recent addition. We are in the process of updating our
documentation. But add_subplot() is not going away because it works just
fine, and it is very familiar to users of Matlab and Octave.



> In principle I think the current API violates the "There should be one--
> and preferably only one --obvious way to do it" rule here, and elsewhere
> :-)
>
>
I feel the way forward should be to create a cleaner API and map the
> current one through a compatibility layer to that.
>
>
This has already been done. We have the GridSpec API that everything else
maps to, for compatibility. But most people still like add_subplot() and
subplots() for some odd reason... I think the primary issue is one of
documentation, and we are currently in the process of upgrading that. We
always welcome contributions to that effort!

Cheers!
Ben Root