Possibly functionalize the plotting functions?

[daquinteroflex]

Break this up:

• Restructuring the plotting functions into viz
• On the fly import of matplotlib
• Eventually restructure the same functions to be composed using the (fig, axs) mechanism.
• Possibly introduce standard object.plot functions using the viz module as an internal function call onto self.

Based on a conversation I had with Marc and my own personal experience:

Maybe it'd be nicer in terms of extensibility if we had purely functional plotting? Something on the lines of:

fig, axs = my_plotting_function(fig, axs, ...)
fig, axs = my_second_plotting_function(fig, axs, ...)

This can make it easier to represent information as just a set of operations between fig, axs and kwargs. We can move all the plotting functionality outside the classmethods and maybe make it more reusable? This way we avoid

def current_plotting_function():
    fig, ax = self.another_function(...)
    ax.do_something()
    self.another_function_in_this_class(fig, ax) # can mutate the fig, ax object directly and sometimes not accessible at a higher level
    return fig, axs

[momchil-flex]

I'm in favor of this, only curious about the exact scope especially from user perspective. If it's about moving all plotting functionality in a viz module while still keeping the same user-facing methods, then I think it sounds great. It's also in line with what we discussed about "properly" eliminating matplotlib as a core dependence.

[daquinteroflex]

Yeah that'd be great actually, and change the functional definitions accordingly when we do this change.

my_pseudo_static_classes/
viz/
   all_my_internal_functions/

and then refactor those functions in that module to be used in:

class MyClass:

   my_plotting_function -> (fig, ax) = viz.my_function() # just like before but also 

In principle, for backwards compatibility we can make my_plotting_function -> (fig, ax) return the same data as before with the new structure.

[momchil-flex]

Yeah, what I like about this apart from backwards compatibility is that otherwise it seems to me that we have two usage options, either:

viz.plot(object: Union[Simulation, Source, Monitor, ...])
# ugly-ish internal dispatch based on ``isinstance(object)``

or

viz.plot_simulation(simulation)
viz.plot_source(source)
viz.plot_monitor(monitor)
# a bit annoying to use

and both seem inferior to just object.plot().