R devel - Apr 2022 - I've written a big review of R. Can I get some feedback?

Hi Stephen,

I must admit, I don't have anything specific in mind. I'm happy to hear
any comments that anyone has.

Thanks,
Reece Goding

> I must admit, I don't have anything specific in mind. I'm happy to
hear any comments that anyone has.
It's relevant and well exposed, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, many problems are deep design flaws that cannot be easily fixed
without breaking backwards compatibility.
Some problems can be fixed, such as the documentation.
R could also generate more warning messages in weird situations. Error messages
can also be improved.

--
Sincerely
Andr? GILLIBERT

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OK, here is my take on your writing.

It seems to appeal to an audience of developers in a developer-centric 
realm.

It does not follow a practiced writing style, nor does it have enough 
structure to work as a peer-reviewed piece.

Now, my recommendation.

You have LOADS of good material in your article. Restructure your work 
to another output medium. Specifically, capitalize on the theme of your 
work...trying to get up and running with R...and develop a web-based 
tool to help people use R by whittling down package selection.

R does graphing. Great. Which packages are used for a particular type of 
graph? R does statistics. Great. Which packages are used for a 
particular statistic calculation?

The tool is a hierarchical approach to help either a seasoned or new 
developer FIND a package to do, well assist, with what they are hoping 
to accomplish. If there were a tool that would provide such help, then 
the wonderful packages that already exist could then be leveraged using 
their existing documentation. If there were a tool that provided such 
assistance, then I would not have to read books, web pages, forums, and 
what not to figure out which of the thousands, perhaps closer to 
hundreds, of packages do the graphing and statistics work I am hoping to 
accomplish.

Multiply this pain by the pain you recent R experience, then multiply 
that product by the number of people who use R now, then add in the 
probability of doubling or tripling it for those who may want to one day 
use R. You would then have quite a bit of notoriety on the world 
wiiiiiiiide web by helping people cut through the muck to get a simple 
answer of package selection.

Then, oh my....the statistical work that R could accomplish from 
visitors using the tool to mature the tool in short order. Talk about 
contributing significant help to R, the world at large, and those who 
come after us.

Perhaps you are not the developer who either can or should do the work 
on this tool. Your article has helped form the value proposition for the 
tool. Find the developer to accomplish the work on this tool and that 
person will have a dot on their CV that will never tarnish.

Ping me if you want more information on this proposed tool.


*Stephen Dawson, DSL*
/Executive Strategy Consultant/
Business & Technology
+1 (865) 804-3454
http://www.shdawson.com


On 4/11/22 17:22, Reece Goding wrote:
> Hi Stephen,
>
> I must admit, I don't have anything specific in mind. I'm happy to
hear any comments that anyone has.
>
> Thanks,
> Reece Goding