On Jul 22, 2009, at 2:47 PM, William Stein wrote:

>
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Robert
> Bradshaw<rober...@math.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On Jul 22, 2009, at 11:24 AM, William Stein wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Ethan Van
>>> Andel<evlu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In list_plot there's some confusion with the pointsize and  
>>>> thickness
>>>> keyword arguments.
>>>>
>>>> These 2 commands run just fine.
>>>> list_plot([(0,0),(1,1)],thickness = 20,plotjoined = true)
>>>> list_plot([(0,0),(1,1)],pointsize = 20,plotjoined = false)
>>>>
>>>> This one runs but ignores thickness and gives you a warning saying
>>>> that it is ignoring thickness.
>>>> list_plot([(0,0),(1,1)],thickness = 20,plotjoined = false)
>>>>
>>>> This one doesn't run at all but gives you an invalid option error.
>>>>
>>>> This behavior is needlessly finnicky, especially when writing
>>>> functions that call list_plot with user supplied parameters. For
>>>> example, this method would fail half of the time.
>>>>
>>>> def foo(size,joined):
>>>>    return list_plot(mydata,pointsize = size, plotjoined = joined)
>>>>
>>>> My first thought for a fix was to make the arguments  
>>>> interchangable,
>>>> ie thickness = 5 and pointsize = 5 would do the same thing in both
>>>> joined and discrete plots. However, they don't actually behave the
>>>> same. For example, the line drawn with thickness = 20 is much  
>>>> thicker
>>>> than a point with pointsize = 20. Therefore, if they were to be
>>>> merged
>>>> in some way what would be the best way to go about it?
>>>
>>> I have always found the value of pointsize to be very mysterious.  I
>>> wonder if we
>>> could make it so pointsize=20 and thickness=20 are the same.  This
>>> would of course
>>> break all existing use of pointsize, but at least it would make  
>>> sense.
>>>
>>> I have heard many people chuckle when wondering what the pointsize
>>> units are.
>>
>> +1 for consistency. However, shouldn't it be able to specify both
>> (and have it draw a line with (possibly larger) points?
>
> Ooooh, that's a good idea.  Are you saying that if both options are
> given, then the large is always taken?  I like that.

Oh, I was thinking of pointsize meaning "size of the plotted points,"  
not "1/72 inch measurment."

- Robert


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