Draft and discuss naming schemes for epix_slide parameters, output

[brookslogan]

See #146 (comment); time_value vs version bullet point.

[brookslogan]

"Discuss" will eventually mean running sketches of use by some potential users / other developers (e.g., Evan, Jacob).

[brookslogan]

As discussion on #170 and #171 has brought up, another naming option for the relevant output column(s), besides time_value, version, and both, is ref_time_value.

[brookslogan]

Some remaining discussion points from #146:

• Separate discussion: should we rename ref_time_values and time_value output column to something involving version, or keep the former and have the latter turn into two duplicate columns with both names? Should we output an epi_archive?

[or should we call the time/version output column ref_time_value?]

• Separate discussion: should we rename max_version parameter of epix_slide to version?

[Since we're moving to more consistently use an "implicit versioning" scheme, where last-version-of-each-observation-carried-forward is assumed everywhere in archives, this may make sense. However, we might then need to think about the naming or discussion of the $DT$version column.]

Some other existing mismatches between slide operations that we might want to think about:

• mutate-like vs summarize-like
  • epi_slide is like mutate: it keeps existing columns and, given scalar output from f, broadcasts each slide result to the associated input locations to maintain size stability
  • epix_slide is like summarize: it only produces the grouping columns + f results, and doesn't broadcast broadcasts differently
• Once n -> before, after / before hits:
  • before=k, after missing in epi_slide means a trailing/right-aligned window that will actually have data at that right side of the window (as we ensure ref_time_values %in% unique(x$time_value)), unless there are some variable-time-values-by-group things to think about
  • before=k, after missing/not-accepted-as-an-arg in epix_slide means a window extending infinitely far into the future, but in typical surveillance data cases, will only contain data up to some time before the associated ref_time_value; to call it trailing/right-aligned doesn't seem precise either way.

Advanced usage:

• Making a forecast ahead of time; e.g., using the target set for forecast date d (target dates >= d) but using data as of some other version v < d (regular surveillance will only be available for time values < v).
• datetime versions. epix_slide over datetime ref_time_values corresponding to a forecast pipeline schedule.

Compactify compatibility

Alternative to implicit versioning interface: explicit versioning interface

• Implementation approaches:
  • something like implicit internals + an explicit observed/additionally-observed-but-no-updates version list.
  • inserting NA-value-filled versions like in epix_fill_through_version
• Changes that would go along:
  • archive constructor might change to take in explicit version data by default & separate fn for the updated-based approach, rather than vice versa or constructing only using the update approach
  • as_of would raise error or give NAs in between observed versions
  • epix_slide would require ref_time_values as between observed versions
  • compactify would likely have less issues/details/additions needed to keep the same behavior between compactified and uncompactified data

[brookslogan]

Another idea to consider here: guess what label to use for the ref_time_values based on the user output: if they provide a(n epi_)df with a time_value column, then use version; else use time_value.