This is a clear articulation - that our first problem is the interface design problem. As everyone points out - there are many different kinds of problems. I liked @bkamins’ Tables.jl suggestion as a standardization. Doesn’t mean everyone has to switch to rows - can always have two interfaces, I suppose.
If the broad group of people here come up with a concrete design and get it implemented in a couple of the core stats packages - then we can push for ecosystem wide adoption as well.
-viral