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Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

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Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#21

Post by chaps »

carlineng wrote: post #20
systemvoltage wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SQL is more natural to me for this sort of declarative DSL. Is there a Pandas-like package that can use in-memory tables and accept SQL queries? About `pd.read_sql()`. That's totally awesome. I realized that Pandas is a very useful tool for many thousands of developers, I only have a problem with its interface. Obviously, I've been using it for many years for a reason!

DuckDB is a really promising project for just that: https://duckdb.org/

That's freaking cool, thanks for sharing.

Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#22

Post by brightbeige »

systemvoltage wrote: post #3

Pandas is basically impossible for me to use without dozens of Google searches after being familiar with it for over 7 years. Ofcourse, I don't use it daily but its one of those pieces of software that has a very non-intuitive API. Does any one find it difficult to use it or its just me? In particular, I find this answer infuriating [1]. I've come across it so many times. Look, I have a CSV with 200 rows and I need t…

It has happened that I’ve searched StackOverflow with Pandas questions and found an answer written by me.

Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#23

Post by kache_ »

systemvoltage wrote: post #3

Pandas is basically impossible for me to use without dozens of Google searches after being familiar with it for over 7 years. Ofcourse, I don't use it daily but its one of those pieces of software that has a very non-intuitive API. Does any one find it difficult to use it or its just me? In particular, I find this answer infuriating [1]. I've come across it so many times. Look, I have a CSV with 200 rows and I need t…

it's shit

Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#24

Post by edmundsauto »

smabie wrote: post #15
dwohnitmok wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you're coming from (yes yes there's a theoretically "good" way of doing this, but come on, why can't I just do the simplest thing), but I also sympathize with the spirit of that SO answer (although I agree that its presentation is wanting). Pandas is really a DSL unto itself and is heavily influenced by R, where the same dynamic happens. Programmers coming from a background where procedural control…

I actually don't like Pandas but I think it's pretty obvious that the array language style is an incredibly powerful way to manipulate blocks of multiple dimensional data. People here are complaining about not being able to use for loops, but why would you want to use them in the first place? Like let's say you want to add two vectors together. Looping over each index and adding them and assigning them to a third vec…

For folks doing this everyday, absolutely. For anyone just learning, it's Yet Another Thing to learn. Sure, the complete programmer will be able to think in better abstractions, but most people fail to reach that level. In part because of the complexity of early stage learning.

It's a balance, and I think pandas is on the more complex side of things.

Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#27

Post by glenngillen »

edmundsauto wrote: post #24
smabie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't like Pandas but I think it's pretty obvious that the array language style is an incredibly powerful way to manipulate blocks of multiple dimensional data. People here are complaining about not being able to use for loops, but why would you want to use them in the first place? Like let's say you want to add two vectors together. Looping over each index and adding them and assigning them to a third vec…

For folks doing this everyday, absolutely. For anyone just learning, it's Yet Another Thing to learn. Sure, the complete programmer will be able to think in better abstractions, but most people fail to reach that level. In part because of the complexity of early stage learning. It's a balance, and I think pandas is on the more complex side of things.

If you don’t want the conceptual model and features pandas provides, is there a reason you don’t just use regular Python without pandas?

Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#28

Post by mft_ »

chaps wrote: post #7
systemvoltage wrote: post #3

Pandas is basically impossible for me to use without dozens of Google searches after being familiar with it for over 7 years. Ofcourse, I don't use it daily but its one of those pieces of software that has a very non-intuitive API. Does any one find it difficult to use it or its just me? In particular, I find this answer infuriating [1]. I've come across it so many times. Look, I have a CSV with 200 rows and I need t…

100% my experience whenever I work with it, and I've been working with it on and off for about five years. I get its appeal -- it fits that fuzzy place where a database is too heavy, but vanilla python is cumbersome... but damn, is it tough to work with. With almost no fail, I always seem to just scrap the pandas code in favor of vanilla python, either from usability issues, or from yet another a library's false prom…

Funny that the example you give is one of the (many) frustrations with Pandas.

It’s ‘read_’ to read something in, but ‘to_’ to write it out? In which world is this intuitive? Surely it should be read/write or even from/to?

Re: Self-Directed Pandas Crash Course

#30

Post by kzrdude »

smabie wrote: post #15
dwohnitmok wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you're coming from (yes yes there's a theoretically "good" way of doing this, but come on, why can't I just do the simplest thing), but I also sympathize with the spirit of that SO answer (although I agree that its presentation is wanting). Pandas is really a DSL unto itself and is heavily influenced by R, where the same dynamic happens. Programmers coming from a background where procedural control…

I actually don't like Pandas but I think it's pretty obvious that the array language style is an incredibly powerful way to manipulate blocks of multiple dimensional data. People here are complaining about not being able to use for loops, but why would you want to use them in the first place? Like let's say you want to add two vectors together. Looping over each index and adding them and assigning them to a third vec…

It's a conceptual spreadsheet or table. Why wouldn't a read-write (element values) row iterator always be available? SQL tables can do it and numpy.ndarrays can do it.
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