Sorting NaNs
Steven D'Aprano
steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info
Sun Jun 10 19:35:09 EDT 2018
On Sun, 10 Jun 2018 21:28:02 +0200, Anders Munch wrote:
> Richard Damon wrote:
>
>> The two behaviors that I have heard suggested are:
>>
>> 1) If any of the inputs are a NaN, the median should be a NaN.
>> (Propagating the NaN as indicator of a numeric error)
>>
>> 2) Remove the NaNs from the input set and process what is left. If
>> nothing, then return a NaN (treating NaN as a 'No Data' placeholder).
>
> 3) Raise an exception.
>
> I can't believe anyone even suggested 2). "In the face of ambiguity,
> refuse the temptation to guess."
It is not a guess if the user explicitly specifies that as the behaviour.
It would be no more of a guess than if the user called
data = [x for x in data if not math.isnan(x)]
on their data first.
--
Steven D'Aprano
"Ever since I learned about confirmation bias, I've been seeing
it everywhere." -- Jon Ronson
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