
Jagged, Ragged, Awkward Arrays - tosh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NxWpU7NArk
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tosh
> Data processing languages, such as SQL, R, MATLAB, and Numpy/Pandas,
> implicitly loop over identically-typed objects ("rows") of a dataset
> ("table"). This makes for a succinct syntax in an interactive environment,
> but what do you do if your table doesn't have a regular shape?

> Particle physicists have this problem: each collision of high-energy protons
> can produce a different number of electrons, photons, quarks, and other
> particle species. As a table with one collision per row, this dataset has a
> jagged edge of unequal-sized rows, sometimes referred to as a ragged array.
> Traditionally, physicists have used general-purpose programming languages
> like FORTRAN and C++ to deal with big, irregularly shaped datasets, but at a
> loss of interactivity and abstraction.

