[kalman_2] Unclear purpose of single-worker plotting example code

[suda-yuga]

Summary

I came across this block of code:

# We can generate a plot for only one of the workers:

T = 50
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(7, 7))

mu_0_1 = np.array([[1],
                 [100]])
mu_0_2 = np.array([[1],
                 [30]])
Sigma_0 = np.zeros((2,2))

uhat_0s = 100
αs = 0.5
βs = 0.3

worker = create_worker(uhat_0=uhat_0, α=α, β=β)
simulate_workers(worker, T, ax, mu_0=mu_0_1, Sigma_0=Sigma_0, 
                 diff=False, name=r'Hard-working worker')
simulate_workers(worker, T, ax, mu_0=mu_0_2, Sigma_0=Sigma_0, 
                 diff=False, 
                 title='A hard-working worker and a less hard-working worker',
                 name=r'Normal worker')
ax.axhline(y=u_0, xmin=0, xmax=0, color='grey', 
           linestyle='dashed', label=r'$u_{i, 0}$')
ax.legend(bbox_to_anchor=(1, 0.5))
plt.show()

However, I find it a bit confusing:

• The comment says "We can generate a plot for only one of the workers," but two workers are actually plotted here.

• The variable uhat_0s looks like it should be a list but it's just a single scalar. Should this be looped over?

• The call to ax.axhline(y=u_0, ...) seems unnecessary, as horizontal lines for true values are already plotted inside simulate_workers.

• Also, u_0 is undefined in this context outside of the loop.

Request

Could we clarify whether this example is meant to plot just one worker or two?

Should the code be refactored to loop over multiple workers instead of hardcoding two calls to simulate_workers?

Should the redundant external ax.axhline be removed?

Any additional comments on how to clean up this example for clarity?

Thanks for the great work!

[jstac]

Thanks @suda-yuga !

I agree with all of these comments. Also, in places where there are one-line code comments such as # We can also generate plots of u_t: above code blocks, these in-code comments should be shifted into markdown.

@mmcky Would you mind coordinating these changes? Many thanks.

[jstac]

Please also see #482