Not possible to tab complete mark_*() methods in chains

[ellisonbg]

When we use the syntax:

Chart(data).mark_foo()

It isn't possible to tab complete the mark_ unless you are using the non-default Greedy tab completion in IPython. Maybe we should just create the chart as c = Chart(data)? in our tutorial examples?

From @Carreau in #140

[Carreau]

Question, [which is totally not for v1.0] why:

Chart(cars).mark_point().encode(
    x='Horsepower',
)

and not:

Chart(
    x='Horsepower', ...
).make_point().data(cars)

That would make it much easier to create a reuse a chart:

my chart = Chart(
    x='Horsepower', ...
).make_point()

then mychart.data(truck), mychart.data(kittens)...

[ellisonbg]

You can actually set the data as an attribute later:

c = Chart()
...
c.data = data

However, because the charts are mutable, you would have to do something like:

deepcopy(c).data = data1
deepcopy(c).data = data2

That would be needed even if data were a method too.

[Carreau]

Yes I've seen that, but then you can't assign the chart to a variable at the same time, as Chart().data = cars return cars. So it is slightly awkward with the current chainable API.

[ellisonbg]

Yeah, although most of the API is attribute based (through traitlets). We
have tried to make a few methods for common things - and those chain. But
the core attribute based API obviously doesn't chain well...

On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 8:36 PM, Matthias Bussonnier <
notifications@github.com> wrote:

Yes I've seen that, but then you can't assign the chart to a variable at
the same time, as Chart().data = cars return cars. So it is slightly
awkward with the current chainable API.

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Brian E. Granger
Associate Professor of Physics and Data Science
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
@ellisonbg on Twitter and GitHub
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