html_url,issue_url,id,node_id,user,created_at,updated_at,author_association,body,reactions,performed_via_github_app,issue
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/2904#issuecomment-484242054,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2904,484242054,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQ4NDI0MjA1NA==,1217238,2019-04-17T20:09:26Z,2019-04-17T20:09:26Z,MEMBER,"Thanks @lumbric !

Feel free to work on improved error messages in another PR :)","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,434444058
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/2904#issuecomment-484239080,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2904,484239080,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQ4NDIzOTA4MA==,691772,2019-04-17T20:00:22Z,2019-04-17T20:00:22Z,CONTRIBUTOR,"Ah yes, true! I've confused something here. `dict()` accepts mappings, but not everything `dict()` accepts is a mapping. `xr.Dataset()` actually accepts only mappings. That makes actually things a bit easier and much clearer.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,434444058
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/2904#issuecomment-484234275,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2904,484234275,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQ4NDIzNDI3NQ==,5635139,2019-04-17T19:45:48Z,2019-04-17T19:45:48Z,MEMBER,"> I feel like it is widely accepted that in the scientific Python ecosystem error messages are hard to read quite often. Maybe this is the downside the duck typing?

We can make it better! 
While duck typing does allow passing incorrectly typed arguments, it doesn't prevent us from checking their types. Python now has types like `Mapping` or `Sized` which can be used more like protocols and so don't give up flexibility. 
So I think it would be strictly dominant for us to check for an instance of `Mapping` there, and raise a readable error message if it fails.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,434444058
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/2904#issuecomment-484232306,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2904,484232306,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQ4NDIzMjMwNg==,691772,2019-04-17T19:39:42Z,2019-04-17T19:39:42Z,CONTRIBUTOR,"Hm yes, good error messages would be great, but I feel like it is widely accepted that in the scientific Python ecosystem error messages are hard to read quite often. Maybe this is the downside the duck typing? I've mentioned this only as explanation why I was so confused after running `xr.Dataset` for the first time.","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,434444058
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/2904#issuecomment-484228485,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2904,484228485,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQ4NDIyODQ4NQ==,5635139,2019-04-17T19:28:00Z,2019-04-17T19:28:25Z,MEMBER,"(agree on the error message, I think we could do a better job there. We already made some minor changes around `set`s but we could make broader checks for these initial entry points that new users first encounter)","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,434444058
https://github.com/pydata/xarray/pull/2904#issuecomment-484228009,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/2904,484228009,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDQ4NDIyODAwOQ==,5635139,2019-04-17T19:26:20Z,2019-04-17T19:26:20Z,MEMBER,"These are great! Agree on the sentence construction. 

Any others are welcome, and please feel free to add an entry & attribution in the whats-new at some point","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,434444058