Hi. > > I agree that the API naming should be consistent, so if the rest of library > is not using Greek letters, I will change the name of the method "getSigma." > I prefer to name it "getCovarianceMatrix" rather than "getCovariances." I > changed all of the methods and members referring to sigma to use > "covarianceMatrix" instead. > > I modified "getVariances" to return the square roots of the diagonal elements > and renamed the method "getStandardDeviations" (note the plural). > > Along the same lines, I renamed "getMu" to "getMeans."
Why not "getMeansVector" or "getStandardDeviationsList". Just kidding: "getMeans" with no reference to the container type is fine. But so it should be too for "getCovariances" (IMO, just for consistency). I understand to people may be used to some wording or another, depending on the context, but we can balance consistency of the API with detailed additional documentation, so that it is clear what is meant by the value (scalar, vector, matrix, ...) returned by a method. You can add links to a freely accessible reference article on the Web, or quote a textbook, indicating the equivalence of the object returned here with the concept named (slightly differently) there. > I chose the plural because it is returning an array of elements, not a single > element. This may also stave off ambiguity for people who refer to the grand > mean of a sample set as the "mean." If anyone has better suggestions please > let us know. That's fine. There are indeed several examples of such usage inside CM. Regards, Gilles --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org
