[PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] Just checking in

Sean Mcsweeney sean@embl-grenoble.fr
Thu, 29 Aug 1996 18:16:39 +0200


Konrad Hinsen writes:
 > > If you have any opinions on the whole naming conventions/default axis issue
 > > that has been recently discussed I'd like to hear them.  I still haven't
 > > found a proposal that I like better than my current version:
 > > 
 > > All default axes are 0
 > > Functions like fft, sort, argmax, ... should generally be called with an
 > > explicit axis specification of -1.  ie. fft(wave, axis=-1).  This explicit
 > > axis specification is only necessary when working on 2 or more dimensional
 > > arrays.
 > 
 > I still think that a two-class system (structural functions with a
 > default axis of zero, others with a default of 1) is the better
 > solution.
 > 
 

My solution would be to let the function determin the default axis -- if
the functions natural usage is axis=0, then this should be the
default, or otherwise as appropriate. 

by natural I mean if 99 times out of 100 I will use

super_whizzo(A,B,C, axis=0) 

I don't see why I should type the axis =0 part just because its
**possible** I may want axis=-1 , the one other time. and/or some default has
specified that this is an axis=-1 function. 

Of course the implementation would document the functionality rather
better than the above ;-)

S


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