Consider using @classmethod to implement alternative constructors in ChemKED

[bryanwweber]

Rather than using if...else statements to check keyword arguments, have methods like

class ChemKED(object):
    def __init__(self, ...):
        # initialize from dictionary

    @classmethod
    def from_file(cls, file):
        inp = load_file_to_dict()
        return cls(inp)

https://youtu.be/HTLu2DFOdTg?t=29m38s