term naming

[bbolker]

It would be good to come up with a unified scheme for naming parameters (e.g. the random-effects correlation between A and B with grouping variable C) and finding streamlined ways to translate from, e.g. the MCMCglmm or brms naming convention to the standard

[bbolker]

Current naming scheme is

((sd|var)|(cor|cov))__<term1>(.<term2>)?

In one place the separator between the type and terms components (__) is coded as options(broom.mixed.sep1). Could make the second separator (currently a dot) into options(broom.mixed.sep2) ...

[mattfidler]

I suppose you should probably put the options(broom.mixed.sep2) in what you have. I will use both with the defaults __ and . respectively for now.

I personally think that SD(parameter) is more readable, but it may cause other issues I am not thinking through right now.

[bbolker]

broom.mixed.sep2 is done.

One of the desiderata for separators is that it should be relatively easy for people to use tidyr::separate to split columns if desired -- surrounding by parentheses makes that harder.

[mattfidler]

Ok. Thats fine with me.

[mattfidler]

Dots are used in variable names, could that be problematic for the default . separator

[mattfidler]

For example, I have seen many people use eta.v and eta.cl then the separator would be:

cor__eta.v.eta.cl

which would mean it is difficult to apply a tidyr::separate for the columns. Of course that is also true for _

[mattfidler]

Perhaps change . to , which is syntactically invalid for a variable name?

[bbolker]

Hmmm. Could use two dots (which are much less usual within names ...)

[mattfidler]

That would work too.

[mattfidler]

Just let me know what the default is and I will update my default.

[bbolker]

I'm going to leave the default as . for now; changing to .., while an improvement, will be a breaking change and I should think about the right way to get there ...

[mattfidler]

Ok. Let me know if/when you decide to change this.

I think it probably should be changed at some time, though. Preferably earlier than later since broom is still relatively new and it won't break as many things right now.

[bbolker]

that's always the tough decision, isn't it?

[mattfidler]

Indeed...