very weird pandas behavior

[Rick Johnson]

On Monday, December 22, 2014 9:56:11 AM UTC-6, ryguy7272 wrote:

I've been using Python for quite a few years now an i can
only once remember using any type of "python installation
tools" (easy_install or pip... puke!). I've always found the
easiest route to be just downloading a zip/tar file, and
then extracting it into my PythonXX/Lib/SitePackages
directory -- of course, not without inspecting the source
code first!!!

> To everyone else, I'm going back to VBA, VB, C#, Java,
> SQL, SSIS, R, & Matlab, simply because all of those work
> perfectly fine. [...] Learning Python was both fun &
> frustrating.  If you need to waste time, work with Python.
> If you need to do real work, use any on the following:
> VBA, VB, C#, Java, SQL, R, & Matlab. 

Well if you're coming from *that* background then Python is
not going to make sense to you. VB has the power to ruin
almost anyone. Naive folks tend to believe that if a
language offers a Graphical front-end then that language
must be "more advanced"...HA! When i see a graphical GUI
builder i run the other direction screaming because i know
that graphic builders *ONLY* exist as shoe polish for
"turdious API's"

 Polish a turd, it's still a turd!

Now don't get me wrong, i understand the *vital* importance
of abstractions, and without them, even the smallest
programs would require more finger gymnastics than a mortal
human could endure. But there *MUST* be a balance drawn
between high level and low level API's, because as you ascend
up the abstraction scale, you may feel good for a while, but
eventually you will find yourself trapped in a prison API of
claustrophobia

You could say that Graphical GUI builders are the highest
possible abstraction, and you would be correct, but it's not
the mere fact that they are "high level" that i find
troublesome, no, because *ANY* text based API could be
abstracted to a level that becomes suitable for even the
laziest programmer, it the fact that they shield you from
the architecture of the underlying code, and what inevitably
happens is that you find yourself needing a functionality
that the Graphical interface does not provide, for which the
only solution is sit down and learn the API you have so
desperately tried to avoid.

  Anyone care for a piping hot cup of irony?

> I just uninstalled Python and deleted 15 Python books that
> I found online.

That seems excessive. I'm sorry but if you need 15 books to
learn how to write Python code, and you already had prior
programming experience, then i am going to say that Python
is definitely not for you.

Instead of taking the graphical route and attempting to
shield you from the harsh realities of life, Python has
devoted all it's energy to providing a clean syntax, an
integrated documentation capability (via doc strings on the
code author's side, and and the help() function on the users
side), interactivity, introspection, and a quite extensive
stdlib. Granted Python has it's warts, and i'm not here to
apologize for *ANY* them, but all in all it's a damn good
language that allows me to be far more productive than any
other language has.

No language can be perfect, but giving up on Python because
you could not get a 3rd party package to install is quite
ridiculous. I mean, if you were dumping it because of it's
shameless herd-conformity to the Unicode standard then AT
LEAST that would make sense me!