<p dir="auto">Opening an issue to discuss this: <strong>should we think about moving the functionality to read online data sources to a separate package?</strong></p>
<p dir="auto">This was mentioned recently here <a class="issue-link js-issue-link" data-error-text="Failed to load title" data-id="49118275" data-permission-text="Title is private" data-url="https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/8842" data-hovercard-type="issue" data-hovercard-url="/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/8842/hovercard?comment_id=63456052&amp;comment_type=issue_comment" href="https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/8842#issuecomment-63456052">#8842 (comment)</a> and <a class="issue-link js-issue-link" data-error-text="Failed to load title" data-id="46802064" data-permission-text="Title is private" data-url="https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/8631" data-hovercard-type="pull_request" data-hovercard-url="/pandas-dev/pandas/pull/8631/hovercard?comment_id=61805926&amp;comment_type=issue_comment" href="https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/pull/8631#issuecomment-61805926">#8631 (comment)</a></p>
<p dir="auto">Some reasons why we would want to move it:</p>
<ul dir="auto">
<li>This often needs much more urgent releases than pandas to fix changes in the remote sources. So with separate release cycle, this can speed up propagation of bugfixes to users</li>
<li>More general: to limit the scope of pandas as the core project, and to encourage that some people take ownership of this subproject (which is easier as a separate project?), publicize it separately, ..</li>
</ul>
<p dir="auto">Some questions that come to mind:</p>
<ul dir="auto">
<li>What should we move? (everything in <a href="http://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/remote_data.html" rel="nofollow">remote_data.rst</a>?)
<ul dir="auto">
<li>Everything in <code class="notranslate">io.data</code>? (the <code class="notranslate">DataReader</code> function for Yahoo and Google Finance, FRED and Fama/French, and the <code class="notranslate">Options</code> class</li>
<li>Also <code class="notranslate">io.wb</code> (certain World Bank data) and <code class="notranslate">io.ga</code> (google analytics interface)?</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Should we move it all to one separate project, or to multiple?</li>
<li>Are there outside of pandas already some packages like this? (possibilities to merge with that/collaborate/..)</li>
<li>Who would be interested to take this up? To be a maintainer of such a package?</li>
</ul>
<p dir="auto">Pinging some of the people have worked on these subpackages (certainly add others if you know):<br>
@dstephens99 <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/MichaelWS/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/MichaelWS">@MichaelWS</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/kdiether/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/kdiether">@kdiether</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/cpcloud/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/cpcloud">@cpcloud</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/vincentarelbundock/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/vincentarelbundock">@vincentarelbundock</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/jnmclarty/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/jnmclarty">@jnmclarty</a><br>
<a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/jreback/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/jreback">@jreback</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/immerrr/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/immerrr">@immerrr</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/TomAugspurger/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/TomAugspurger">@TomAugspurger</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/hayd/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/hayd">@hayd</a> <a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/jtratner/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/jtratner">@jtratner</a></p>
<p dir="auto">Currently <code class="notranslate">Series</code> has a <code class="notranslate">name</code> member, which is useful for retaining the name of the sliced <code class="notranslate">index</code>/<code class="notranslate">column</code> when the <code class="notranslate">Series</code> is produced by slicing a <code class="notranslate">DataFrame</code>.</p>
<p dir="auto">It would be useful for <code class="notranslate">DataFrame</code> similarly to have a <code class="notranslate">name</code> member, so that when a <code class="notranslate">DataFrame</code> is produced by slicing a <code class="notranslate">Panel</code>, the name of the sliced index is retained.</p>
<p dir="auto">And while you're at it, may as well add <code class="notranslate">name</code> to <code class="notranslate">Panel</code> and even <code class="notranslate">Panel4D</code>...</p>