Name of main import about boost-histogram

[jpivarski]

Owning boost would be a prerequisite for importing into boost.histogram, since changes to boost/__init__.py could lock you out of the use of that name. Even if you do own it, there's not a lot of value to using it as a namespace unless you expect there to be other, parallel boost.XYZ libraries.

Despite the ambiguity about - (sometimes used for package names) vs _ (always used for import names), there's a precedent. Quite a few libraries use - for a package name and _ for import. At worst, there's two things to try.

I don't think the - or _ is ideal; somebody might have a better idea.

[HDembinski]

If there was no other package called boost, we could just grab the name and the package slot. Since there are issues using boost and we would like to avoid the - and _ issue, how about using another name? I am thinking that maybe having boost in the name is not a good idea, since this code is not officially reviewed by the Boost community and perhaps we should avoid any misunderstanding there.

What other names could we use? bhistogram?

[jpivarski]

boosthistogram would not be terrible. Long enough words are easier to visually separate, particularly if both are very familiar, like this.

But I think the "standard" thing to use for a PyPI package like this, for better or worse, is boost-histogram (import boost_histogram).

[henryiii]

There is a package called boost - It's tagline is "Boost automatically toots from users of the Mastodon social network" - and only has one 0.1 release a couple of years ago. It's unlikely to be a problem, but we can avoid it.

[HDembinski]

Just so that there is no misunderstanding, I am not fond of bhistogram, I am just brain-storming at this point. I think I can live with boost-histogram and boost_histogram. Users (except maybe me) will anyway not install boost-histogram, but hist, right? If boost-histogram is only used internally by hist, then we can live with this minor inconvenience.

[henryiii]

My thought is to have boost-histogram as the "Numpy" of histogramming. So a user who wants to fill and manipulate histograms will install boost-histogram; no dependencies save Numpy, and works everywhere. They can also build libraries on top of it like they would Numpy. If they want a "Pandas" of histogramming, they will install hist. Hist will use aghast, matplotlib, and potentially other dependencies, just like Pandas. Hist is aimed at physics analyses and similar uses.

[HDembinski]

Yes, that sounds good to me. I think the module should be called boost_histogram because that's the least surprising when you install a package called boost-histogram.

[henryiii]

This was done in #110. I'll leave this open for a few days for any discussions about the way it was done, names, etc.