soliciting feedback on proposed user survey

Hey everyone,

with 1.1.1 just around the corner, I thought it'd be nice to put
together an MPL user survey, similar to what Thomas Kluyver
organized for IPython last year [1].

Here's what I've got so far [2], and here's the response one gets
upon filling out the form:

···

-----
Thanks for your feedback.

As promised, here are the details of how to do various things:

the official documentation is at:
    http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

to run the test suite:
    python -c "import matplotlib; matplotlib.test()"

file bug reports and submit pull requests here:
    https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib

to post to the matplotlib-users list, subscribe here:
    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
-----

with an additional link at the bottom to look at the summary of previous
respondents, which looks like [3].

How does this look to everyone? Any changes before I distribute
this more widely? (Preferably not just via list, but also add a
link to it on the main page, which is what IPython folks also did
for a while).

1. http://ipython.org/usersurvey2011.html
2. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHpQS25pcTZIRWdqX0pNckNSU01sMHc6MQ
3. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dHpQS25pcTZIRWdqX0pNckNSU01sMHc6MQ

best,
--
Paul Ivanov
314 address only used for lists, off-list direct email at:
http://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7

Paul Ivanov, on 2012-03-28 17:22, wrote:

Hey everyone,

with 1.1.1 just around the corner, I thought it'd be nice to put
together an MPL user survey, similar to what Thomas Kluyver
organized for IPython last year [1].

Here's what I've got so far [2], and here's the response one gets
upon filling out the form:

-----
Thanks for your feedback.

As promised, here are the details of how to do various things:

the official documentation is at:
    http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

to run the test suite:
    python -c "import matplotlib; matplotlib.test()"

file bug reports and submit pull requests here:
    GitHub - matplotlib/matplotlib: matplotlib: plotting with Python

to post to the matplotlib-users list, subscribe here:
    matplotlib-users List Signup and Options
-----

with an additional link at the bottom to look at the summary of previous
respondents, which looks like [3].

How does this look to everyone? Any changes before I distribute
this more widely? (Preferably not just via list, but also add a
link to it on the main page, which is what IPython folks also did
for a while).

1. IPython User Survey 2011 — IPython
2. matplotlib user survey 2013
3. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dHpQS25pcTZIRWdqX0pNckNSU01sMHc6MQ

Me again, just decided to inline the survey text, so that
suggestions can be more readily made here, without having to
following links, etc.

matplotlib user survey 2012

Stand up and be counted, matplotlib developers want to hear from you! All
questions are optional, we look forward to your feedback.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What country are you from? [ ]

How long have you been using matplotlib?

  • (*) about a month
  • ( ) < 6 months
  • ( ) about a year
  • ( ) 2 to 4 years
  • ( ) more than 4 years

What operating system do you run matplotlib on? (check all that apply)

  • *BSD (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc)
  • GNU/Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, OpenSUSE, Arch, Gentoo, etc)
  • Mac OS X
  • Windows
  • Other: [ ]

What version of python do you use matplotlib on? (check all that apply)

  • 2.4
  • 2.5
  • 2.6
  • 2.7
  • 3.0
  • 3.1
  • 3.2

You use matplotlib for: (check all that apply)

  • Academic development (research, publication graphics, etc.)
  • Commercial development
  • Personal hobby / recreationally

You *primarily* use matplotlib for: (check all that apply)

  • ( ) Academic development (research, publication graphics, etc.)
  • ( ) Commercial development
  • ( ) Personal hobby / recreationally

How do you use matplotlib?
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]

How frequently do you *RUN* code which uses matplotlib?

  • ( ) daily
  • ( ) a few times per week
  • ( ) a few times per month
  • ( ) less frequently

How frequently do you *WRITE* code which uses matplotlib?

  • ( ) daily
  • ( ) a few times per week
  • ( ) a few times per month
  • ( ) less frequently

For the matplotlib project, do you know how to ... (check all that apply,
you'll get all the answers after you hit the submit button)

  • locate and navigate the official documentation
  • run the test suite
  • file bug reports on GitHub
  • post to the matplotlib-users list
  • submit patches / pull requests

In the past year, have you... (check all that apply)

  • accessed the official documentation
  • run the test suite
  • filed a bug report on GitHub
  • posted to the matplotlib-users list
  • submitted a patch / pull request

How do you get matplotlib on your machine? (check all that apply)

  • compile and install directly from source (zip / tarball / git checkout)
  • use official packages provided by matplotlib team
  • use packages provided by my operating system (.deb, .rpm, ports, etc)
  • Enthought Python Distribution (EPD) http://enthought.com/products/epd.php
  • Python(X,Y) Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
  • Sage http://sagemath.org/
  • Other: [ ]

What other plotting libraries do you use and why?
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]

How would you like matplotlib to improve in the future?
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]

best,

···

--
Paul Ivanov
http://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7

This is a great idea. A question that might be worth adding is what backends are being used. I'd be interested to find out which ones are most heavily used.

A related question (though I don't know how easy it would be to be complete on) would be what plot types are used.

Thanks for doing this!

Mike

···

On 03/28/2012 08:27 PM, Paul Ivanov wrote:

Paul Ivanov, on 2012-03-28 17:22, wrote:

Hey everyone,

with 1.1.1 just around the corner, I thought it'd be nice to put
together an MPL user survey, similar to what Thomas Kluyver
organized for IPython last year [1].

Here's what I've got so far [2], and here's the response one gets
upon filling out the form:

-----
Thanks for your feedback.

As promised, here are the details of how to do various things:

the official documentation is at:
     http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

to run the test suite:
     python -c "import matplotlib; matplotlib.test()"

file bug reports and submit pull requests here:
     GitHub - matplotlib/matplotlib: matplotlib: plotting with Python

to post to the matplotlib-users list, subscribe here:
     matplotlib-users List Signup and Options
-----

with an additional link at the bottom to look at the summary of previous
respondents, which looks like [3].

How does this look to everyone? Any changes before I distribute
this more widely? (Preferably not just via list, but also add a
link to it on the main page, which is what IPython folks also did
for a while).

1. IPython User Survey 2011 — IPython
2. matplotlib user survey 2013
3. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dHpQS25pcTZIRWdqX0pNckNSU01sMHc6MQ

Me again, just decided to inline the survey text, so that
suggestions can be more readily made here, without having to
following links, etc.

matplotlib user survey 2012

Stand up and be counted, matplotlib developers want to hear from you! All
questions are optional, we look forward to your feedback.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What country are you from? [ ]

How long have you been using matplotlib?

   • (*) about a month
   • ( )< 6 months
   • ( ) about a year
   • ( ) 2 to 4 years
   • ( ) more than 4 years

What operating system do you run matplotlib on? (check all that apply)

   • *BSD (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc)
   • GNU/Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, OpenSUSE, Arch, Gentoo, etc)
   • Mac OS X
   • Windows
   • Other: [ ]

What version of python do you use matplotlib on? (check all that apply)

   • 2.4
   • 2.5
   • 2.6
   • 2.7
   • 3.0
   • 3.1
   • 3.2

You use matplotlib for: (check all that apply)

   • Academic development (research, publication graphics, etc.)
   • Commercial development
   • Personal hobby / recreationally

You *primarily* use matplotlib for: (check all that apply)

   • ( ) Academic development (research, publication graphics, etc.)
   • ( ) Commercial development
   • ( ) Personal hobby / recreationally

How do you use matplotlib?
[ ]

How frequently do you *RUN* code which uses matplotlib?

   • ( ) daily
   • ( ) a few times per week
   • ( ) a few times per month
   • ( ) less frequently

How frequently do you *WRITE* code which uses matplotlib?

   • ( ) daily
   • ( ) a few times per week
   • ( ) a few times per month
   • ( ) less frequently

For the matplotlib project, do you know how to ... (check all that apply,
you'll get all the answers after you hit the submit button)

   • locate and navigate the official documentation
   • run the test suite
   • file bug reports on GitHub
   • post to the matplotlib-users list
   • submit patches / pull requests

In the past year, have you... (check all that apply)

   • accessed the official documentation
   • run the test suite
   • filed a bug report on GitHub
   • posted to the matplotlib-users list
   • submitted a patch / pull request

How do you get matplotlib on your machine? (check all that apply)

   • compile and install directly from source (zip / tarball / git checkout)
   • use official packages provided by matplotlib team
   • use packages provided by my operating system (.deb, .rpm, ports, etc)
   • Enthought Python Distribution (EPD) http://enthought.com/products/epd.php
   • Python(X,Y) Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
   • Sage http://sagemath.org/
   • Other: [ ]

What other plotting libraries do you use and why?
[ ]

How would you like matplotlib to improve in the future?
[ ]

best,

For the backend question, add a “don’t know (what’s a backend?)” option. Maybe ask about which mpl_toolkits that get used, (axes_grid1, mplot3d, Basemap, etc)?

Ben Root

P.S. - No, I am not really back, just have free wifi today at this hotel and some down time. I have no clue when my new place will get Internet turned on.

···

On Thursday, March 29, 2012, Michael Droettboom wrote:

This is a great idea. A question that might be worth adding is what

backends are being used. I’d be interested to find out which ones are

most heavily used.

A related question (though I don’t know how easy it would be to be

complete on) would be what plot types are used.

Thanks for doing this!

Mike

Ok, added a question about backends. Hopefully I didn't miss one.

Which backends do you use? (check all that apply, note that there is a
"I don't know. What's a backend?" option)

    Agg
    Cairo
    FLTKAgg
    GDK
    GTK
    GTKAgg
    GTKCairo
    macosx
    PDF
    PS
    QTAgg
    QT4Agg
    SVG
    TkAgg
    WX
    WXAgg
    I don't know. What's a backend?

···

--
Paul Ivanov
314 address only used for lists, off-list direct email at:
http://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7

If mew=0, then the caps on errorbars are not drawn regardless of the setting of the "capsize" option. I don't think this should be the behavior, it certainly caught me off guard, since I had mew=0 set in rcParams.

This is present as of 5b499f0180befea04fab7bfda17ba3ad7cf2380e
(Mar 22nd master)

M

This is indeed confusing and I have been meaning to do something about this
for a while now (yet another item in my todo list...). Keep in mind that
there is actually no discrepancy. The marker is turned onto its side. So
the marker edge width parameter actually effects the cap's thickness. So,
having a finite capsize, but a zero thickness should result in no cap being
drawn.

But it is totally unintuitive that mew should have anything to do with the
cap thickness and what should be done is introduce a new kwarg "capthick"
or "capheight" and eventually have it completely replace the responsibility
of mew in errorbars.

Ben Root

···

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 7:49 AM, Mike Kaufman <mckauf@...149...> wrote:

If mew=0, then the caps on errorbars are not drawn regardless of the
setting of the "capsize" option. I don't think this should be the
behavior, it certainly caught me off guard, since I had mew=0 set in
rcParams.

This is present as of 5b499f0180befea04fab7bfda17ba3ad7cf2380e
(Mar 22nd master)

M