[Numpy-discussion] feedback request: proposal to add masks to the core ndarray

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 07:51:25PM -0400, josef.pktd at gmail.com wrote:
> From the perspective of statistical analysis, I don't see much
> advantage of this. What to do with nans depends on the analysis, and
> needs to be looked at for each case.

>From someone who actually sometimes does statistics with missing data, I
would like to echo this feeling. The hard problem is to write your
statistical code (estimator, or test statistics) in such a way that it
can deal with missing data. The actually container/marker to store the
data is quite minor.

G