[Numpy-discussion] Missing Data development plan

[Mark Wiebe]

It's been a day less than two weeks since I posted my first feedback request
on a masked array implementation of missing data. I'd like to thank everyone
that contributed to the discussion, and that continues to contribute.

I believe my design is very solid thanks to all the feedback, and I
understand at the same time there are still concerns that people have about
the design. I sincerely hope that those concerns are further discussed and
made more clear just as I have spent a lot of effort making sure my ideas
are clear and understood by everyone in the discussion.

Travis has directed me to for the moment focus a majority of my attention on
the implementation. He will post further thoughts on the design issues in
the next few days when he has enough of a break in his schedule.

With the short time available for this implementation, my plan is as
follows:

1) Implement the masked implementation of NA nearly to completion. This is
the quickest way to get something that people can provide hands-on feedback
with, and the NA dtype in my design uses the machinery of the masked
implementation for all the computational kernels.

2) Assuming there is enough time left, implement the NA[] parameterized
dtype in concert with a derived[] dtype and cleanups of the datetime64[]
dtype, with the goal of creating some good structure for the possibility of
creating more parameterized dtypes in the future. The derived[] dtype idea
is based on an idea Travis had which he called computed columns, but
generalized to apply in more contexts. When the time comes, I will post a
proposal for feedback on this idea as well.

Thanks once again for all the great feedback, and I look forward to getting
a prototype into your hands to test as quickly as possible!

-Mark
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