My pynto https://github.com/punkbrwstr/pynto is a similar framework for creating dataframes, but using a concatenative paradigm that treats the frame as a stack of columns. Functions ("words") operate on the stack to set up the graph for each column, and execution happens afterwards in parallel. Instead of function modifiers like @does it uses combinators to apply quoted operations to multiple columns. The postfix syntax (think postscript or factor) is unambiguous, if a bit old-school.

Which game is it where you drop the word "otiose" in the second paragraph?

It's the "I read a lot of books and I want people to know" game.

The stack-oriented approach can also be used within modern languages to realize the benefits of simplicity and code-reusablility. I created a python package for data analysis that treats a data frame like a stack of columns and lets you manipulate columns using postfix operators: https://github.com/punkbrwstr/pynto

Wow, this looks really interesting. Was there any particular reason you decided on this approach?

Building up complicated time series transformations by composing simple functions helps me be sure I'm doing what I think I'm doing. Since the transformations are tacit expressions that don't define specific parameters they are then very easy to re-use and combine. And I have some combinators that can apply the functions in pretty flexible ways. Also, since its all lazy-evaluated on a per-column level I can work with huge tables, but only end up operating on the subset I need.

How is that more interesting than simple .modify_column(params)?

You definitely could do a similar column-level functional approach that way, but I think the simple syntax of the stack-oriented approach makes it easier to read and catch errors. The code would be a lot longer that way.

Thanks! I tried keeping it all stack-based, but I really wanted default arguments. In the end the parameters felt more usable even if they are "impure". I made a bunch of iterations of a postfix calculator for time series before realizing there is a whole world of concatenative langauges. The Factor paper really blew my mind.