[HN Gopher] Plotnine: Grammar of Graphics for Python
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       Plotnine: Grammar of Graphics for Python
        
       Author : EntICOnc
       Score  : 53 points
       Date   : 2021-01-28 20:40 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (datascienceworkshops.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (datascienceworkshops.com)
        
       | closed wrote:
       | In case anyone is wondering what the big deal is with ggplot /
       | plotnine, I record myself doing hour long data analyses in python
       | with it!
       | 
       | I've noticed that a lot of bootcamp grads can use matplotlib to
       | do very simple plots, but when it comes to iterating on a data
       | analysis (trying different plots, facetting on variables, etc..),
       | they get tripped up quickly.
       | 
       | I've been trying to use a port of dplyr I'm working on (siuba)
       | and plotnine to show what on-the-fly analyses might look like.
       | Can't speak highly enough of plotnine!
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/z6xNKZZMWgU
        
       | abhisuri97 wrote:
       | I've had to learn R for some Epi classes this semester and,
       | coming from doing figures/stat analysis in python, it really is a
       | breath of fresh air. Imo, The R ecosystem for stats and figure-
       | making just has much better "defaults" than matplotlib. That
       | being said, I have been incredibly frustrated with R error
       | messages and some syntactical things about the language, so I'm
       | super happy to hear that plotnine exists.
        
       | GizmoSwan wrote:
       | Wow. Very useful.
       | 
       | Keeping a bookmark for when I need it and I will use this
       | sometime in future I am sure.
        
       | fvfvefdvrhhtgfv wrote:
       | 8888
        
       | fvfvefdvrhhtgfv wrote:
       | 55
        
       | binarymax wrote:
       | My colleague who is a pro at R gave us some internal training on
       | using this in Python. Never going back to Matplotlib again!
        
       | simlan wrote:
       | First time i hear about this. It is definitely pretty but i can
       | not wrap my head around the syntax... It feels wrong. But i am a
       | long time matplotlib user so that should be no surprise.
        
         | superbcarrot wrote:
         | Some basic building blocks for it:
         | 
         | - the data source is always in a dataframe
         | 
         | - you can add one or more geometries like points or lines to a
         | plot
         | 
         | - properties of geoms can be either hardcoded or (more often)
         | mapped to a variable from the dataframe. That's what the
         | "mapping=aes()" syntax does.
         | 
         | The last part is really the main thing you have to worry about
         | building visualisations - which variable from the dataset to
         | map to which element of the plot. And yes, it still looks a bit
         | weird to read R syntax in a Python script.
        
         | flobosg wrote:
         | Yeah, the Grammar of Graphics syntax can feel a bit awkward at
         | first, but once it clicks it makes a lot of sense.
        
         | khr wrote:
         | I found a previous HN submission very helpful:
         | https://evamaerey.github.io/ggplot_flipbook/ggplot_flipbook_...
         | 
         | The author builds up plots step by step, showing the changes to
         | the plot along the way. It's really great at showing what each
         | element contributes to the final plot.
        
       | EForEndeavour wrote:
       | This tutorial is excellent, and skimming it was worth it to me
       | just for the discovery of https://github.com/Phlya/adjustText!
       | 
       | Also, an unfortunate namespace wart is that there's a python
       | package called ggpy that seems to have been abandoned since 2016:
       | https://github.com/yhat/ggpy
       | 
       | "plotnine" being the de facto python equivalent of ggplot2 is not
       | obvious at all, but I'll take it :)
        
       | frakt0x90 wrote:
       | I use this daily and love it. I used to use R just for EDA and
       | visualization and Python for the rest but plotnine hanged that
       | for me so I can do everything in one language. So much better
       | than Matplotlib IMO.
        
       | domoritz wrote:
       | As a related tool, there is Altair (https://altair-
       | viz.github.io/), which also implements the Grammar of Graphics as
       | well as a Grammar of Interaction.
        
         | vladsanchez wrote:
         | You beat me here! I was surprised that I didn't find "Altair"
         | in the source article. Thanks for posting.
        
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