About agate¶
Why agate?¶
- A readable and user-friendly API. 
- A complete set of SQL-like operations. 
- Unicode support everywhere. 
- Decimal precision everywhere. 
- Exhaustive user documentation. 
- Pluggable extensions that add SQL integration, Excel support, and more. 
- Designed with iPython, Jupyter and atom/hydrogen in mind. 
- Pure Python. No C dependencies to compile. 
- Exhaustive test coverage. 
- MIT licensed and free for all purposes. 
- Zealously zen. 
- Made with love. 
Principles¶
agate is a intended to fill a very particular programming niche. It should not be allowed to become as complex as numpy or pandas. Please bear in mind the following principles when considering a new feature:
- Humans have less time than computers. Optimize for humans. 
- Most datasets are small. Don’t optimize for “big data”. 
- Text is data. It must always be a first-class citizen. 
- Python gets it right. Make it work like Python does. 
- Humans lives are nasty, brutish and short. Make it easy. 
- Mutability leads to confusion. Processes that alter data must create new copies. 
- Extensions are the way. Don’t add it to core unless everybody needs it.