API: consider deprecating DataFrame.hist in favor of DataFrame.plot.hist

[shoyer]

This came up in the PR adding plot submethods like .plot.hist: #9321 (comment)

As long as API differences can be reconciled, I think it would be a nice idea to deprecate (and eventually remove) DataFrame.hist, DataFrame.boxplot and Series.hist in favor of the accessor mtehods.

This old issue discusses API differences (possibly no longer accurate/relevant?): #413

[jreback]

@shoyer @TomAugspurger either one of you for 0.18.0?

[ResidentMario]

Excuse my naivete, but what is to be done here? I did a quick test and all of the DataFrame.plot arguments seem to work when passed into sub-methods (granted, I did not test this extensively, but...).

[jreback]

DataFrame.hist, DataFrame.boxplot and Series.hist in favor of

DataFrame.plot.hist etc

this issue is about emitting a deprecation for these (the replace is already there)

[ResidentMario]

Is this as simple as tossing a bunch of deprecate decorators onto things, then?

[jreback]

@ResidentMario

I think these are actually defined in pandas.tools.plotting.hist_series as a real method. I think that should be removed and instead direct to the plotting accessor.

@TomAugspurger @jorisvandenbossche

[ResidentMario]

Well, the hist_series code does include this comment:

# hack until the plotting interface is a bit more unified

Not a typical comment in pandas source code. 😄 So it does indeed sound like things are a bit more complicated than that.

PS: I think that closing this should also correspond with closing one of the oldest issues still open, #413.

[jreback]

yeah, plotting is like Alice-in-wonderland..........