Re: [matplotlib-devel] overridding builtin variables in pylab

[Todd M. <jm...@st...>]

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 06:23, John Hunter wrote:
> >>>>> "John" == John Hunter <jdh...@ac...> writes:
> 
>     John> I'm happy with Fernando's proposed names amin, amax, around,
>     John> etc.  If everyone else is too, I propose Andrew implement
>     John> his patch, provide the compatibility names, and update the
>     John> relevant docs to advertise this prominently: API_CHANGES,
>     John> CHANGELOG, tutorial and users guide.  Particularly in the
>     John> latter two, I think we should warn people about the
>     John> potential performance hit of using the builtin min, max and
>     John> friends on large arrays.
> 
> Hmm, another thought.
> 
> If we are going to make this change for the pylab namespace, then it
> seems we might as well make the change in the numerix namespace as
> well, since all the same arguments apply.  I think doing different
> things in numerix and pylab *is* a recipe for confusion.  What do you
> think Todd, does this seem sensible?
> 
> Basically, the theme would be we use the underlying names from
> Numeric/numarray except when they clash with python builtins, in which
> case we'd use something like the a* names Fernando proposed.
> 
> Of course, changing the numerix names would mean the matplotlib code
> and examples will have to be updated as well.  The former should be
> relatively easy since I believe there are no uses of unqualified min
> and max from numerix in the base code.  Eg, we do in axes.py
> 
> from numerix import max as nxmax
> from numerix import min as nxmin
> 
> and in mlab.py we do MLab.max.  But we'll have to be careful to make
> sure all the names Andrew identified are handled thoughout the coude
> and examples...
> 
> JDH

This all sounds fine to me.  My understanding is that anywhere we "get
this wrong" the impact will be degraded performance.  As an aside,  I
avoid "from *" like the plague myself but understand that it's important
to optimize interactive use.

Unleash Andrew and I'll try to propagate the changes forward to Scipy.

Todd