[AstroPy] [SciPy-dev] More on Summer NumPy Doc Marathon

[David Goldsmith]

Thanks, Stefan.  The lists you suggest already exist (more or less, depending on the "thing," i.e., list of categories, completely, prioritized list of individual items, sort of, at least w/in the categories) on the Milestones page (that's essentially what the Milestones page is) and the list of individual items is far too long to duplicate here, but for everyone's convenience I'll provide the list of categories (at least those for which the goal has not been, or is not close to being, met, which is most of them):

Data type investigation
Fourier transforms
Linear algebra
Error handling
Financial functions
Functional operations
Help routines
Indexing
Input/Output
Logic, comparisons etc.
Polynomials
Random number generation
Other random operations
Boolean set operations
Searching
Sorting
Statistics
Comparison
Window functions
Sums, interpolation, gradients, etc
Arithmetic + basic functions I
Arithmetic + basic functions II
Arithmetic + basic functions III
Masked arrays
Masked arrays, II
Masked arrays, III
Masked arrays, IV
Operations on masks
Even more MA functions I
Even more MA functions II
Numpy internals
C-types
Other math
The matrix library
Numarray compatibility
Numeric compatibility
Other array subclasses
Matrix subclass
Ndarray
Ndarray, II
Dtypes
Ufunc
Scalar base class
Scalar types

Comments:

0) The number of individual items in each of these categories varies from one to a few dozen or so

1) Omitted are a few "meta-categories," e.g., "Routines," "Basic Objects," etc.

2) IMO, there are still too many of these (at least too many to not be intimidating in the manner Stefan has implied); I had it in mind to try to create an intermediate level of organization, i.e., "meso-categories," but I couldn't really justify it on grounds other than there are simply still too many categories to be unintimidating, so I was advised against usage of time in that endeavor.  However, if there's an outpouring of support for me doing that, it would fall on sympathetic ears.

As far as prioritizing individual items, my opinion is that team leads should do that (or not, as they deem appropriate) - I wouldn't presume to know enough to do that in most cases.  However, if people want to furnish me with suggested prioritizations, I'd be happy to be the one to edit the Wiki to reflect these.

DG

--- On Tue, 6/9/09, Stéfan van der Walt <stefan at sun.ac.za> wrote:

> From: Stéfan van der Walt <stefan at sun.ac.za>
> Subject: Re: [SciPy-dev] More on Summer NumPy Doc Marathon
> To: "SciPy Developers List" <scipy-dev at scipy.org>
> Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2009, 1:34 AM
> Hi David
> 
> 2009/6/9 David Goldsmith <d_l_goldsmith at yahoo.com>:
> >
> > Hi again, folks.  I have a special request.  Part of
> the vision for my job is that I'll focus my writing efforts
> on the docs no one else is gung-ho to work on.  So, even if
> you're not quite ready to commit, if you're leaning toward
> volunteering to be a team lead for one (or more) categories,
> please let me know which one(s) (off list, if you prefer) so
> I can get an initial idea of what the "leftovers" are going
> to be.  Thanks!
> 
> That's a pretty wide question.  Maybe you could post a
> list of
> categories and ask who would be willing to mentor and write
> on each?
> For the writing, we could decide on a prioritised list of
> functions,
> publish that list and then document those entries one by
> one (i.e.
> make the tasks small enough so that people don't run away
> screaming).
> 
> Cheers
> Stéfan
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