Hi everybody, I know this might be very off topic and it took me quite a while to up my courage to post this?. But I remember a thread some time ago about how we can find the packages we need to do specific tasks in R if we don?t know before hand which ones actually do it. Now all the packages are listed alphabetically on the web site. Since I am not very advanced in writing my own functions I relay heavily on work already done and only when I have no other choice I modify existing functions. Usually my modifications are only cosmetic. But sometimes I use lots of time to just read the descriptions of packages until I decide that maybe one will do close to what I want. I wonder if there is any way to improve how these packages are displayed on the site and help with this decision. I wonder if the community as a whole can come up with some broader categories such as Bayesian, spatial statistics, bootstrap, vegetation analysis, circular statistics, robust statistics, etc., and the authors of the package can choose 1 or 2 or how many categories they think their package fits the most. On the web page we can have a list of those very broad categories and within each category we can have in alpha order the packages themselves with their description and such as it is now. So if I am interested in vegetation analysis or environmental analysis but I never did it before I go to that category and see which packages are more geared towards that particular subject. For example it was by chance alone and some GOOGLE search that I discovered that the package labdsv has anything to do with vegetation analysis since first of course I looked at any package which might have ?veg? or ?env? in the title. I also realize that this might mean a lot of work, but R develops so rapidly that soon I think it will be unmanageable to just peruse the list of packages and read descriptions in order to choose which package to install, when you are not familiar with all of them. I hope I didn?t offend the community with this, I would be very sorry since actually I get lots of help here and I learnt a lot from you. I will remain forever greatful. Thanks, Monica _________________________________________________________________ [[elided Hotmail spam]]
Google for CRAN Task Views On Feb 4, 2008 9:34 AM, Monica Pisica <pisicandru at hotmail.com> wrote:> > Hi everybody, > > > I know this might be very off topic and it took me quite a while to up my courage to post this?. But I remember a thread some time ago about how we can find the packages we need to do specific tasks in R if we don't know before hand which ones actually do it. Now all the packages are listed alphabetically on the web site. Since I am not very advanced in writing my own functions I relay heavily on work already done and only when I have no other choice I modify existing functions. Usually my modifications are only cosmetic. > > > But sometimes I use lots of time to just read the descriptions of packages until I decide that maybe one will do close to what I want. I wonder if there is any way to improve how these packages are displayed on the site and help with this decision. I wonder if the community as a whole can come up with some broader categories such as Bayesian, spatial statistics, bootstrap, vegetation analysis, circular statistics, robust statistics, etc., and the authors of the package can choose 1 or 2 or how many categories they think their package fits the most. On the web page we can have a list of those very broad categories and within each category we can have in alpha order the packages themselves with their description and such as it is now. So if I am interested in vegetation analysis or environmental analysis but I never did it before I go to that category and see which packages are more geared towards that particular subject. For example it was by chance alone and some GOOGLE search that I discovered that the package labdsv has anything to do with vegetation analysis since first of course I looked at any package which might have "veg" or "env" in the title. > > > I also realize that this might mean a lot of work, but R develops so rapidly that soon I think it will be unmanageable to just peruse the list of packages and read descriptions in order to choose which package to install, when you are not familiar with all of them. I hope I didn't offend the community with this, I would be very sorry since actually I get lots of help here and I learnt a lot from you. I will remain forever greatful. > > > > Thanks, > > Monica > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > [[elided Hotmail spam]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >
Hi I think this is a good suggestion. And I would like to add the associated problem of deciding between packages that do the same function which one is "better". Or similarly packages are often superceded. I find I have to spend a lot of time learning how to use packages to decide which one is most suitable; or I spend time with a package to eventually find out it was superceded some time ago or has been incorporated in another package. It is also difficult to know how packages fit together (or not). Functionality often overlaps or is duplicated. I have had some difficulty with microarray packages - not being sure if they complement each other or are exclusive to each other. (I know that is more Bioconductor but the same principle applies in pure R packages, though perhaps not as pronounced a problem). Regards JS --- -----Original Message----- From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Monica Pisica Sent: 04 February 2008 14:34 To: r-help at r-project.org Subject: [R] How to search for packages Hi everybody, I know this might be very off topic and it took me quite a while to up my courage to post this.... But I remember a thread some time ago about how we can find the packages we need to do specific tasks in R if we don't know before hand which ones actually do it. Now all the packages are listed alphabetically on the web site. Since I am not very advanced in writing my own functions I relay heavily on work already done and only when I have no other choice I modify existing functions. Usually my modifications are only cosmetic. But sometimes I use lots of time to just read the descriptions of packages until I decide that maybe one will do close to what I want. I wonder if there is any way to improve how these packages are displayed on the site and help with this decision. I wonder if the community as a whole can come up with some broader categories such as Bayesian, spatial statistics, bootstrap, vegetation analysis, circular statistics, robust statistics, etc., and the authors of the package can choose 1 or 2 or how many categories they think their package fits the most. On the web page we can have a list of those very broad categories and within each category we can have in alpha order the packages themselves with their description and such as it is now. So if I am interested in vegetation analysis or environmental analysis but I never did it before I go to that category and see which packages are more geared towards that particular subject. For example it was by chance alone and some GOOGLE search that I discovered that the package labdsv has anything to do with vegetation analysis since first of course I looked at any package which might have "veg" or "env" in the title. I also realize that this might mean a lot of work, but R develops so rapidly that soon I think it will be unmanageable to just peruse the list of packages and read descriptions in order to choose which package to install, when you are not familiar with all of them. I hope I didn't offend the community with this, I would be very sorry since actually I get lots of help here and I learnt a lot from you. I will remain forever greatful. Thanks, Monica _________________________________________________________________ [[elided Hotmail spam]] ______________________________________________ R-help at r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Or use RSiteSearch, with restrict="functions", or use the site itself: http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/
Hi Jonathan, I didn't know about your web page - now it is in my favorites. I am sure it will help a lot. Google does and doesn't do the job - sometimes ;-) But R and packages are an open source and i realize that people already put a lot of good effort into something which is essentially free so some time spent to figure out what do we need is very justifiable. Only that lately i am overwhelmed by the amount of packages available ..... which is a good thing i am sure ;-) - but when you are pressed by time to get some analysis done .... it can be also frustrating. Thanks, Monica> Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:20:49 -0500 > From: baron at psych.upenn.edu > To: ggrothendieck at gmail.com > CC: pisicandru at hotmail.com; r-help at r-project.org > Subject: Re: [R] How to search for packages > > Or use RSiteSearch, with restrict="functions", or use the site itself: > http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/ >_________________________________________________________________ 08
On Feb 4, 2008 8:34 AM, Monica Pisica <pisicandru at hotmail.com> wrote:> > Hi everybody, > > > I know this might be very off topic and it took me quite a while to up my courage to post this?. But I remember a thread some time ago about how we can find the packages we need to do specific tasks in R if we don't know before hand which ones actually do it. Now all the packages are listed alphabetically on the web site. Since I am not very advanced in writing my own functions I relay heavily on work already done and only when I have no other choice I modify existing functions. Usually my modifications are only cosmetic. > > > But sometimes I use lots of time to just read the descriptions of packages until I decide that maybe one will do close to what I want. I wonder if there is any way to improve how these packages are displayed on the site and help with this decision. I wonder if the community as a whole can come up with some broader categories such as Bayesian, spatial statistics, bootstrap, vegetation analysis, circular statistics, robust statistics, etc., and the authors of the package can choose 1 or 2 or how many categories they think their package fits the most. On the web page we can have a list of those very broad categories and within each category we can have in alpha order the packages themselves with their description and such as it is now. So if I am interested in vegetation analysis or environmental analysis but I never did it before I go to that category and see which packages are more geared towards that particular subject. For example it was by chance alone and some GOOGLE search that I discovered that the package labdsv has anything to do with vegetation analysis since first of course I looked at any package which might have "veg" or "env" in the title.Before Christmas I started working on a solution for this - http://crantastic.org - a site for searching, reviewing and tagging R packages. Unfortunately I've run out of steam lately (and the lack of a 64-bit ubuntu package for R means it's a bit out of date), but the basic ideas are there. If you like how the site is looking so far please let me know, as it will be motivation for me to get the site finished. Hadley -- http://had.co.nz/