revamp blog post

Author: scottyhq

.gitignore

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+public/atom.xml
+public/rss.json
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 yarn.lock
 package-lock.json
 

src/posts/flexible-indexes/index.md

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 ---
 title: 'Xarray indexes: unleash the power of coordinates'
-date: '2023-08-07'
+date: '2025-06-05'
 authors:
   - name: Benoît Bovy
     github: benbovy
+  - name: Scott Henderson
+    github: scottyhq
 summary: 'It is now possible to take full advantage of coordinate data via Xarray explicit and flexible indexes'
 ---
 
-_TLDR: Xarray has been through a major refactoring of its internals that makes coordinate-based data selection and alignment (almost) fully customizable, via built-in and/or 3rd party indexes. It also addresses a good amount of long-standing issues with "dimension coordinates" implicitly backed by pandas (multi-)indexes._
+_TLDR: Xarray has been through a major refactoring of its internals that makes coordinate-based data selection and alignment more customizable, via built-in and/or 3rd party indexes! In this post we highlight a few examples that take advantage of this new superpower_
 
 ## Introduction
 
-[link to Joe's CZI blog post]
+Xarray is a large project that is constantly evolving to meet needs of users and stay relevant to work with novel data formats and use-cases. One area of improvement identified in the [Development Roadmap](https://docs.xarray.dev/en/stable/roadmap.html#flexible-indexes) is the ability add new coordinate indexing capabilities beyond the original `pandas.Index`. Let's look at a few examples to understand what is now possible!
 
-## The concept of "dimension coordinate" and its shortcomings
+TODO: Insert Benoit's awesome schematic from indexing sprint :)
 
-Some datasets could not be loaded with Xarray (dimension name and coordinate with same name but different dimensions)
+## Alternatives to pandas.Index
 
-Complicated workarounds (swap_dims, etc.)
+Generally-useful index alternatives are already part of Xarray!
 
-Limited and/or challenging for data cubes representing arbitrary grids (curvilinear grids, unstructured meshes, etc.).
+### RangeIndex
 
-## Better index vs. coordinate separation
+By default a `pandas.Index` calculates all coordinates and holds them in-memory. There are many use-cases where for 1-D coordinates where it's more efficient to store the start,stop,and step and calculate specific coordinate values on-the-fly. THis is what RangeIndex accomplishes:
 
-Refactor index logic in `Index` classes. More easily maintainable. May help Pandas become optional dependency in the future? (cf. Xarray-lite).
+```python
+import xarray as xr
+from xarray.indexes import RangeIndex
 
-Also allowed to solve lots of issues with multi-indexes, for which each level has now its own real coordinate.
+index = RangeIndex.arange(0.0, 100_000, 0.1, dim='x')
+ds = xr.Dataset(coords=xr.Coordinates.from_xindex(index))
+ds
+```
 
-Dataset / DataArray section has now an "indexes" section.
+<RawHTML filePath='/posts/flexible-indexes/rangeindex-repr.html' />
 
-## Selection using non-dimension, 1-d coordinates
 
-Set an index for non-dimension coordinates! (No more swap_dims anymore or coordinate renaming)
+### IntervalIndex
 
-```python
-ds.set_xindex(“non_dim_coord”).sel(non_dim_coord=“something”)
-```
-
-## Alternatives to pandas.Index
+TODO: Not sure if this one is ready to highlight(https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/10296)
 
-E.g., Numpy index (much faster to build, much more expensive to query), Geometry index (xvec)
 
-Out-of-core index, etc.
+## Third-party custom Indexes
 
-...or no index at all! (Create dataset with no default index, `drop_indexes`)
 
-## Create custom indexes from arbitrary coordinates and dimensions
+### Xvec GeometryIndex
 
-Not limited to 1-dimensional coordinates, even more flexible!
+TODO: Highlight https://xvec.readthedocs.io/en/v0.2.0/generated/xvec.GeometryIndex.html
 
-RasterIndex, FunctionalIndex, etc.
+### RasterIndex
 
-See xarray discussion for examples
+TODO: Highlight https://github.com/dcherian/rasterix
 
 ## What’s next
 
-Still unfinished [link: indexes next steps GH issue], extension entry points, etc.
+ While we're extremely excited about what can *already* be accomplished with the new indexing capabilities, there are plenty of exciting ideas for future work. If you're interested in getting involved we recommend following [this GitHub Issue](https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/6293)!
 
 ## Acknowledgments
 
-CZI, Xarray core developers, etc.
+This work would not have been possible without technical input from the Xarray core team and community!
+Several developers received essential funding from a [CZI Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) grant](https://xarray.dev/blog/czi-eoss-grant-conclusion) as well as NASA's Open Source Tools, Frameworks, and Libraries (OSTFL) grant 80NSSC22K0345.