There are a lot of *args, **kwargs signatures in the API. In many cases, they could be better described by explicit arguments/kw-arguments. This makes for a more clear API and reduces the chance of unintended misuse.

For example pyplot.delaxes

def delaxes(*args):
    """..."""
    if not len(args):
        ax = gca()
    else:
        ax = args[0]
    ...

would be more clear with

def delaxes(ax=None):
    """..."""
    if ax is None:
        ax = gca()
    ...

For all intended uses, the API compatibility is preserved. Unreasonable and possibly wrong uses like
delaxes(ax1, ax2) or delaxes(ax, mykwarg=True) would raise an Exception after the change. In itself, this is a benefit, because these cases will then be detected as false usage. However it may break existing programs.

Before I do any pull requests, is there a policy how to handle such cases?

• Do you want to change these things, or should they be left as they are:
  • for cases like the above one where arguments are directly resolved in the function/method?
  • for cases where the all the arguments are passed like e.g. pyplot.savefig?
• Which branch should changes go into?