[Python-ideas] Pre-PEP: adding a statistics module to Python

[Ethan Furman]

On 08/04/2013 03:51 PM, Joshua Landau wrote:
>
>> Coincidentally, that's the same difference I immediately come up
>> with for sum and statistics.sum -- "statistics.sum must have
>>  something do to with statistics"; and I would never think about
>> it again unless I had a problem with statistics.
>
>
> That's not really true -- statistics.sum is better named
>  statistics.precise_sum. It's not only useful when doing statistics.

That may be, but it is in the statistics module, so I'm not going to
think of it unless I'm doing something requiring statistics.


> I tend to think of it this way: the name should make it clear when
> you should read the documentation. gzip.open is  obvious; you should
>  read it when you work with gzip files. statistics.sum is not because
> *all* sums are statistical sums.

Apparently you know more about stats than I do.  I must admit I'm curious how the sum 10 is statistical (to make it 
interesting we can say it's the value of the dollars I have in my pocket).  At any rate, you can see that I, at least, 
would read the docs to see what statistics.sum would do.

--
~Ethan~