[Numpy-discussion] Args for rand and randn: call for a vote

[Robert Kern]

Ed Schofield wrote:
> Last week's discussion on rand() and randn() seemed to indicate a  
> sentiment that they ought to take tuples for consistency with ones,  
> zeros, eye, identity, and empty -- that, although they are supposed  
> to be convenience functions, they are inconvenient precisely because  
> of their inconsistency with these other functions.  This issue has  
> been raised many times over the past several months.
> 
> Travis made a change in r2572 to allow tuples as arguments, then took  
> it out again a few hours later, apparently unsure about whether this  
> was a good idea.

He was experimenting to see if it was technically easy or not.

> I'd like to call for a vote on what people would prefer, and then ask  
> Travis to make a final pronouncement before the feature freeze.
> 
> * Should numpy.rand and numpy.randn accept sequences of dimensions as  
> arguments, like rand((3,3)), as an alternative to rand(3,3)?

-1 This is worse than the problem it's trying to solve. You'll still see the 
inconsistent rand(3,3) in people's code.

> * Should rand((3,3)) and randn((3,3)) continue to raise a TypeError?

This is a false dichotomy. There are more choices here.

* Remove rand and randn (at least from the toplevel namespace) and promote the 
use of random_sample and standard_normal which already follow the tuple convention.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco