Can we expect to see an R package on Statistical Quality Control in the future like SPLUS? I can't understand why nobody made this package before. ______________________ Indrajit SenGupta Department Of Statistics St. Xavier's College Calcutta University indra_calisto at yahoo.com indrajitsg at vsnl.net ______________________ EC- 195 Salt Lake City, Sector -1 Calcutta 700064 West Bengal India Phone #337-5424 ______________________ _________________________________________________________ -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Indrajit SenGupta wrote:> > Can we expect to see an R package on Statistical Quality Control in the > future like SPLUS? I can't understand why nobody made this package before.Nice to hear you would like to contribute! Thank you! Uwe Ligges -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Hey Folks, I may have some suggestions for you, based on my experience as a newbie with R. Implementing these very simple resources would be fairly easy to do and would give volumes of help in return: 1) An R Cookbook section of the site where people can submit pieces of interesting code that satisfies a need. This would be similar to the Perl/Python/Java Cookbook texts that O'Reilly puts out, but with a more dynamic activity. The python folks have something like this, and people love it. I learned a lot of python this way. 2) A Series of Documents helping people translate from another package to R. For example, "R for SPSS People", "R for SAS People", etc. 3) A dynamic FAQ, placed prominently on the front page, ready for people to access and search. The idea is that, as you encounter these dumb questions, you can slap up another faq question about it. When it is asked again, don't bother replying, just *politely* say, "go to http://www.r-project.com/somefaqquestion/". That saves everyone headaches, and encapsulates the knowledge on the list. If it were setup right, it could be searchable through R. 4) Better web site layout. It is hard to read the manuals if you can't find them. 5) Better search for the site. It would be nice if you used google on the site, but even htdig setup properly would help. 6) Better layout of packages listed on CRAN. This listing format will collapse under its own weight once it gets too large. 7) Create the "Encyclopedia of Statstics" online. I would kill for a repository of all the "trade secrets" of statistics, related to R. For example: a brief discussion of the merits of factor analysis, considering its heritage with IQ tests. Or, "The History of Student". If this were organized right, it would even be possible to access it from R itself and provide people with help with the statistics part of using R (which is probably the most difficult portion). And, related to R: 8) Command completion and contextual help in R. The first one is probably fairly easy. The second one is probably impossible. It would involve giving out detailed help messages when things go wrong. Not sure how to do that. 9) Finally, my personal pet peeve of R: tell me the line number of errors. It's nearly impossible to fix a broken function when I don't know where it is broken. Anyway, those are just a few suggestions. You'll notice that there is a common thread through all of them: record the knowledge somewhere, make it easy to find. I think doing at least some of these things would improve support for R, and make it fairly famous (especially if the statistics encyclopedia worked out). Zed A. Shaw -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Once again, I think a lot of this has been done, although not quite the way you would like. Another point is that the sort of things you are asking are things that can be done by non-statisticians, e.g., anyone with a web server and some extra disk space. On 04/02/02 03:28, Zed Shaw wrote:>Hey Folks, > >I may have some suggestions for you, based on my experience as a newbie >with R. Implementing these very simple resources would be fairly easy >to do and would give volumes of help in return: > >1) An R Cookbook section of the site where people can submit pieces of >interesting code that satisfies a need. This would be similar to the >Perl/Python/Java Cookbook texts that O'Reilly puts out, but with a more >dynamic activity. The python folks have something like this, and people >love it. I learned a lot of python this way.I like this, but see below.>2) A Series of Documents helping people translate from another package >to R. For example, "R for SPSS People", "R for SAS People", etc.The "R for psychology" thing I wrote with Yuelin Li is a LITTLE like this, as it makes a lot of comparisons with Systat and SAS. (Systat, believe it or not, is the "scientific" package sold by SPSS, and SPSS is the "business" package.)>3) A dynamic FAQ, placed prominently on the front page, ready for >people to access and search. The idea is that, as you encounter these >dumb questions, you can slap up another faq question about it. When it >is asked again, don't bother replying, just *politely* say, "go to >http://www.r-project.com/somefaqquestion/". That saves everyone >headaches, and encapsulates the knowledge on the list. If it were setup >right, it could be searchable through R.There is a FAQ, and perhaps you can figure out how to make it "dynamic".>4) Better web site layout. It is hard to read the manuals if you can't >find them.They come with R itself, and you can point your browser to files on your disk. They are also on http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu, and elsewhere.>5) Better search for the site. It would be nice if you used google on >the site, but even htdig setup properly would help.I have htdig set up on http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu, along with other things that might interest you and others.>6) Better layout of packages listed on CRAN. This listing format will >collapse under its own weight once it gets too large. > >7) Create the "Encyclopedia of Statstics" online. I would kill for a >repository of all the "trade secrets" of statistics, related to R. For >example: a brief discussion of the merits of factor analysis, >considering its heritage with IQ tests. Or, "The History of Student". >If this were organized right, it would even be possible to access it >from R itself and provide people with help with the statistics part of >using R (which is probably the most difficult portion).I like this, and (1) above. We have some of this in our "R for psychology" piece, but more of this could be done, _if_ it were properly searchable. A problem is that a lot of uses of R (or any such program) are discipline dependent. Thus, an alternative is to develop things like this for different disciplines, which is the approach we've taken. I'm not sure ANYONE, even the members of the core team, could anticipate the needs of all the various users of R, well enough to make a more detailed FAQ. It is hard enough for me just in the grab bag called "psychology," which includes time-series analysis of neural impulses, fMRI data, questionnaire studies, and treatment outcome studies. But at least I know about them because I sit through job talks! Thus, I encourage more of what we did, and I think you have provided some good suggestions that we can use for revision.>And, related to R: > >8) Command completion and contextual help in R. The first one is >probably fairly easy. The second one is probably impossible. It would >involve giving out detailed help messages when things go wrong. Not >sure how to do that.Doesn't ESS do this?>9) Finally, my personal pet peeve of R: tell me the line number of >errors. It's nearly impossible to fix a broken function when I don't >know where it is broken.If you run a script like source("myscript.R",echo=T) you see exactly what it is doing and you can find where it bombs. Moreover - and Systat never did this - all the variables created up to the point where it bombs are there for you to examine. Even when it bombs within a loop, the index of the loop is available. (This often happens to me when I have one subject with no variance on the dependent variable in a within-subject regression, and this is the easiest way to find such cases.)>Anyway, those are just a few suggestions. You'll notice that there is a >common thread through all of them: record the knowledge somewhere, make >it easy to find. I think doing at least some of these things would >improve support for R, and make it fairly famous (especially if the >statistics encyclopedia worked out). > >Zed A. Shaw > >-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- >r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html >Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" >(in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch >_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._-- Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 03:28:13AM -0800, Zed Shaw wrote:> Hey Folks, > > I may have some suggestions for you, based on my experience as a newbie > with R. Implementing these very simple resources would be fairly easy > to do and would give volumes of help in return: > > 1) An R Cookbook section of the site where people can submit pieces of > interesting code that satisfies a need. This would be similar to the > Perl/Python/Java Cookbook texts that O'Reilly puts out, but with a more > dynamic activity. The python folks have something like this, and people > love it. I learned a lot of python this way.You may try get in contact with the author of the following web document http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn/R/statsRus.html> > 2) A Series of Documents helping people translate from another package > to R. For example, "R for SPSS People", "R for SAS People", etc.http://www.r-project.org/other-docs.html> > 3) A dynamic FAQ, placed prominently on the front page, ready for > people to access and search. The idea is that, as you encounter these > dumb questions, you can slap up another faq question about it. When it > is asked again, don't bother replying, just *politely* say, "go to > http://www.r-project.com/somefaqquestion/". That saves everyone > headaches, and encapsulates the knowledge on the list. If it were setup > right, it could be searchable through R.Several FAQs are accessible at http://www.-r-projects.org/faqs.html Personally I never remember how to download r-devel using rsync. I am going to the 'R FAQ' then I am using the 'text search feature' of my web browser (Alt+F, Ctr+F, or / in my case) and I find the answer. Do not mistake a concise answer for an impolite answer. Busy people sometimes allow themselfves to skip some of the formalities.> > 4) Better web site layout. It is hard to read the manuals if you can't > find them. >?! I have a menu item 'Manuals' when I go to http://www.r-project.org/ (on the left, third from the top in the 'Documentation' section)> 5) Better search for the site. It would be nice if you used google on > the site, but even htdig setup properly would help. >'www.google.com' aficionados may try the string 'site:www.r-project.org' in their queryi for example.> 6) Better layout of packages listed on CRAN. This listing format will > collapse under its own weight once it gets too large.Memory has become more expensive over the last few months but displaying a html document that weights even few hundred kilobytes remains a reasonable assumption (the document is currently 164 kb).> > 7) Create the "Encyclopedia of Statstics" online. I would kill for a > repository of all the "trade secrets" of statistics, related to R. For > example: a brief discussion of the merits of factor analysis, > considering its heritage with IQ tests. Or, "The History of Student". > If this were organized right, it would even be possible to access it > from R itself and provide people with help with the statistics part of > using R (which is probably the most difficult portion). >I remembered being a happy user of statlib http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/> > And, related to R: > > 8) Command completion and contextual help in R. The first one is > probably fairly easy. The second one is probably impossible. It would > involve giving out detailed help messages when things go wrong. Not > sure how to do that. >I am not certain about how 'easy' is the first, but I am surely happy a brave soul did it (I am an humble user, I am not sure I could have done it). Did you check ESS ? (accessible through the menu 'Other' at www.r-project.org). If you are not sure about how to accomplish what you believe being impossible... :)> 9) Finally, my personal pet peeve of R: tell me the line number of > errors. It's nearly impossible to fix a broken function when I don't > know where it is broken. >I usually reach the faulty part in my function within an acceptable time. Did you try help(traceback) help(debug) ?> > Anyway, those are just a few suggestions. You'll notice that there is a > common thread through all of them: record the knowledge somewhere, make > it easy to find. I think doing at least some of these things would > improve support for R, and make it fairly famous (especially if the > statistics encyclopedia worked out). > > Zed A. Shaw >Hopin' it helps, Laurent -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
> On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 03:28:13AM -0800, Zed Shaw wrote:> > 7) Create the "Encyclopedia of Statstics" online. I would kill for a > > repository of all the "trade secrets" of statistics, related to R. For > > example: a brief discussion of the merits of factor analysis, > > considering its heritage with IQ tests. Or, "The History of Student". > > If this were organized right, it would even be possible to access it > > from R itself and provide people with help with the statistics part of > > using R (which is probably the most difficult portion).This is a great idea, one which I started working on around late 1994 (the "online history and/or course thing"). One of the cool things that the early WWW had going for it was lots of people trying to integrate and collaborate, and one such project was the world-wide web encyclopaedia. It had two extremely fatal flaws -- funding and academic credit (for people who worked on it). It has a secondary flaw -- people worry more about contributing to a documentation project than to a software project (at least in my experience -- I've had 2 on-line text books since 1996 that many, many people have asked for hard-copy (at least PDF/PS versions) of). But apparently the asking price was too high (fix mistakes/typos or contribute a paragraph). And while I'm ranting, there are another set of problems -- people prefer to speculate than to write (code/docs/prototypes), and write than read (existing frameworks, and integrate with them). Leads to many wheel reinventions. If you really want something like that (on-line encyclopedia), there are plenty of approximations, for example. I think the Statistica folk (I might be getting the package wrong) have something like that on their WWW site. Of course, I didn't integrate with R back then, R wasn't too much at that point (and XML wasn't really worth noticing, let along developing with, until 1997/1998)... But note the real point -- discussing how great something would be is quite silly until you attempt a prototype of it, to see how it might work out. And to reiterate what someone else mentioned -- most of the core people are busy; suggestions are best accompanied with at least a prototype to be fixed. Finally, with respect to SPC -- yes, all the tools are there, in the sense that EVERY stat package, including plain excel, has all the tools. Even C and Fortran have all the tools, in the sense I'm talking about. Functions to make it easier, on the other hand, aren't present (yet). And this is the crux of the matter. best, -tony ---- A.J. Rossini Rsrch Asst Professor of Biostatistics rossini at u.washington.edu http://software.biostat.washington.edu/ Biostatistics/Univ. of Washington 206-543-1044 (3286=fax) (Thursdays) HIV Vaccine Trials Network/FHCRC 206-667-7025 (4812=fax) (M/Tu/W) (Friday location is generally unknown). -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, Indrajit SenGupta wrote:> Can we expect to see an R package on Statistical Quality Control in the > future like SPLUS? I can't understand why nobody made this package before. >There are some of these features in the strucchange package. You can often find this sort of thing out by using Jonathan Baron's search site, which is linked from R homepage. (I searched on `process control', which didn't work, and on `CUSUM', which did.) This probably doesn't have everything you want, but it might. The reason you got some less than helpful responses might well be the `I can't understand...' comment. The usual reason that R doesn't have a particular feature is that no-one who needs that feature in their everyday work contributes to R. R has some features that are there because they are important for completeness, but it is quite heavily biased towards things that the users and developers actually do. Someone who doesn't routinely do statistical process control is less likely to implement it in R (and less likely to do a good job of implementing it if they do). -thomas -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, E.L. Willighagen wrote:> > Indeed. A "Search" link under "Documentation" on www.r-projects.org itself > pointing to it would be nice. Who is the person to ask for this? >There *is* a Search link under "R-project" on www.r-project.org -thomas -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 03:28:13AM -0800, Zed Shaw wrote: ...> 2) A Series of Documents helping people translate from another package > to R. For example, "R for SPSS People", "R for SAS People", etc. >The way I started to teach myself how to use and program in R was to write some functions that either simulated STATA output or at least spat out a reminder about how to get the output I needed. Here's one example: stata.encode <- function(){ cat("*** STATA to R ***\nEncode character data as a numbered factor. Take a look at\nas.factor(). Here's a quick example:\n\nx <- as.factor(x)\n\nTo see the codes, use codes(x)\n") } I created a crude library called stata so I could then type: library(stata) stata.encode() ...which gave me... *** STATA to R *** Encode character data as a numbered factor. Take a look at as.factor(). Here's a quick example: x <- as.factor(x) To see the codes, use codes(x) Not elegant, but this approah helped me. The library is not anywhere near ready for submitting to CRAN but I agree with the idea behind Zed's suggestion that people migrating from one system to another think in the old system to begin with. Dave -- Dave Whiting Dar es Salaam, Tanzania -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Tuesday 2 April 2002 18:31, Thomas Lumley wrote:> On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, E.L. Willighagen wrote: > > Indeed. A "Search" link under "Documentation" on www.r-projects.org > > itself pointing to it would be nice. Who is the person to ask for this? > > There *is* a Search link under "R-project" on www.r-project.orgYes, but that one is able to search the site (which ofcourse includes the docs, i know) and the mailarchives... but most of the time i do not want to search the complete site, or the mailarchives... just the documentation... and, hence, the request... Egon -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On 04/03/02 11:03, Egon Willighagen wrote:>On Tuesday 2 April 2002 18:31, Thomas Lumley wrote: >> On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, E.L. Willighagen wrote: >> > Indeed. A "Search" link under "Documentation" on www.r-projects.org >> > itself pointing to it would be nice. Who is the person to ask for this? >> >> There *is* a Search link under "R-project" on www.r-project.org > >Yes, but that one is able to search the site (which ofcourse includes the >docs, i know) and the mailarchives... but most of the time i do not want to >search the complete site, or the mailarchives... just the documentation... >and, hence, the request... > >EgonThe htdig search facility at http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu allows search of just the documentation, or just the functions, or just R-help (now divided into pre-1.0 and since-1.0), or some combinations. Suggestions welcome for others. -- Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._