[Python-ideas] Pre-PEP: adding a statistics module to Python

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

David Mertz writes:

 > The case of really long numeric streams feels like like it is
 > common enough to warrant this capability.  We might well have a
 > billion numbers in a file on a disk... or they might trickle in
 > slowly from an actual instrument.

The latter is the important question, I think, and Steven has already
said that he has online algorithms (ie, updating as data becomes
available) in mind for future implementation.

 > Here's a question for the actual statisticians on the list (I'm not
 > close to this).  Would having a look-ahead window of moderate size
 > (probably configurable) do enough good in numeric accuracy to be
 > worthwhile?

There's a better approach.  In both the "large list" and "possibly
infinite iterator" cases, a *distribution* of "moderate degree of
refinement" can summarize all of the data without losing precision.