[Python-ideas] Adding quantile to the statistics module

[PLIQUE Guillaume]

That's really interesting. I did not know there were so many way to
consider quantiles. Maybe we should indeed wait for numpy to take a
decision on the matter and go with their default choice so we remain
consistent with the ecosystem?

2018-03-16 5:36 GMT+01:00 Stephen J. Turnbull <
turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp>:

> Steven D'Aprano writes:
>
>  > Indeed. I've been considering quantiles and quartiles for a long time,
>  > and I've found at least ten different definitions for quantiles and
>  > sixteen for quartiles.
>
> My take is "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
> Quantiles are used a lot for "government work".  Pick a definition
> that's good enough for that.
>
> Pick one that is commonly used and has nice invariance properties if
> any are applicable (e.g., quartile1(list) == quartile3(reversed(list),
> although I'm not even sure that is appropriate!), document it
> carefully, and give (some) examples of the edge cases that affect
> comparability of the statistics module's computation to alternative
> formulae.
>
> I'd like to see your list written up.  To my mind, it would be of
> enough general interest that you could probably publish the results of
> your research in a political science or maybe psychology journal, or a
> statistics journal oriented to practitioners and/or educators[1].  I'm
> not suggesting you should do the work involved in actually submitting
> unless there's benefit to you in it, I'm just saying I think it's that
> interesting.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve
>
>
> Footnotes:
> [1]  I'd find it useful in talking to my students about trusting
> computers, for one thing.
>
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