R devel - Dec 2004 - R and Gnumeric?

Hi all,

A hopefully quick query. I was reading a posting over at
gnomedesktop.org on the latest release of Gnumeric 1.4:

http://gnomedesktop.org/node/2090

There is a mention there:

Improved accuracy:
        While Gnumeric 1.2 was already the best available source for
        accuracy in statistical calculations, Gnumeric 1.4 is even
        better. We are cooperating with The R Project to make this
        happen.
        
I was just curious if anyone from R Core might comment on the nature and
scope of the cooperation, as I could not find anything at the Gnumeric
web site on this.

Does this suggest that perhaps code sharing and/or some level of
validation is taking place on selected Gnumeric math/stat functions?

In light of the recent discussions on Excel, this might provide more
substantive incentive for those who find themselves needing to use
spreadsheets to consider Gnumeric*. Since it is also available under
Windows, though not yet Mac OS as far as I can tell, some level of cross
platform functionality is available.

Thanks,

Marc

* Not that we particularly want to advocate such use.   :-)

On Dec 20, 2004, at 10:20 AM, Marc Schwartz wrote:
> I was just curious if anyone from R Core might comment on the nature 
> and
> scope of the cooperation, as I could not find anything at the Gnumeric
> web site on this.
I don't know about that, either, but as of R and Gnumeric i know that 
Duncan was working on a  package for that:
http://www.omegahat.org/RGnumeric/
However, I didn't test it myself, but you may want to give it a shot.
> In light of the recent discussions on Excel, this might provide more
> substantive incentive for those who find themselves needing to use
> spreadsheets to consider Gnumeric*. Since it is also available under
> Windows, though not yet Mac OS as far as I can tell, some level of 
> cross
> platform functionality is available.
I'd be very surprised if Gnumeric didn't compile on OS X - there may be 
no native port, but the X11 version should work on OS X (if in doubt, 
check fink and darwinports).

Cheers,
Simon

Marc Schwartz <MSchwartz@medanalytics.com> writes:
> I was just curious if anyone from R Core might comment on the nature and
> scope of the cooperation, as I could not find anything at the Gnumeric
> web site on this.
> 
> Does this suggest that perhaps code sharing and/or some level of
> validation is taking place on selected Gnumeric math/stat functions?
It's fairly informal, and mainly on the special functions level.
Gnumeric imports bits (all?) of R's standalone math library. You may
have seen some bug reports from terra@gnome.org (aka Morten Welinder)
on accuracy issues and the like. Morten is a Gnome/Gnumeric developer
and works with R-core members (I believe mostly Martin Maechler) from
time to time. If you look at Morten's reports, I'm sure you'll agree
that he is rather good at actively seeking out erroneous and
suboptimal code.

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