As a true R-Newbie, I thought I would respond to Zed Shaw's ideas. I think they're all good. I've put comments re the ones which would be critical for me>>>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 think the critical issue with this would be indexing and documentation. Also possibly copyright problems e.g., If I or someone wrote a function to apply the formula for CIs around a proportion given by Agresti and Coull (1998). Approximate is better than exact for interval estimation of binomial proportions" American Statistician, 52 119-126. Would I file it under CI? proportion? binomial? or what? would I need to get permission from the authors before posting it?>>>2) A Series of Documents helping people translate from another>>>package to R. For example, "R for SPSS People", "R for SAS People", >>>etc. If someone did a good job of this, it would be TREMENDOUSLY useful to me, and I am sure to others as well. I'm used to SAS, and am finding the learning curve for R pretty steep....>>>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.A good idea. But, one quibble: Questions aren't "dumb". They may be ignorant. As another thread here is making clear, e-mail is not conducive to shadings of emotion. While I am sure Zed meant no disrespect to anyone, conceiving of questions as "dumb" leads one to thinking that the person ASKING the question is "dumb" which leads to responses that treat the person as dumb, which isn't good. If someone asks a question which you don't feel like answering, don't answer! :-). If you answer, be polite. Just my two cents; again, from a real newbie. Peter L. Flom, PhD Assistant Director, Statistics and Data Analysis Core Center for Drug Use and HIV Research National Development and Research Institutes 71 W. 23rd St New York, NY 10010 (212) 845-4485 (voice) (917) 438-0894 (fax) -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 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 _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
> From: Lukas Kubin [mailto:lukas.kubin at permonik.com] > On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, Jonathan Baron wrote: > > > >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? > > Isn't this too automatical answer? I don't use Emacs and > believe I'm not > the only. But it is not the core problem. Why to connect as important > basic (in my opinion) interface feature as command completion > (at least) > is with using a special text editor? In Octave, database > interfaces and > others command completion is a standard. So what's the reason not to > include it in R?Well, as Thomas Lumley said in the other message, because no one who wants it bad enough had *contributed* the code. Many things in Open Source projects such as R get done because some users wanted them bad enough that they wrote the code, and then contributed to the project. Just think about it, how many people have the motivation to write and contribute code that they don't need themselves, just to please some people who do nothing but complain? Andy> lukas > - -- > Lukas Kubin > lukas.kubin at permonik.com > phone: 00420603836180 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.0.5 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.75-6 > > iD8DBQE8qciY4TIZ2lmUAtsRAkH2AJ9/AFgD1lbCSNyxlV/2KO/pQYUFkwCfdcWq > lN/IvP8BdjHgd0dnAl53o3c> =bN+L > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- > 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 > _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. > _._._._._._._._._ >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notice: This e-mail message, together with any attachments, contains information of Merck & Co., Inc. (Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA) that may be confidential, proprietary copyrighted and/or legally privileged, and is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity named in this message. If you are not the intended recipient, and have received this message in error, please immediately return this by e-mail and then delete it. ============================================================================= -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 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 _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
At 06:37 02/04/02 -0800, Anthony Rossini wrote:>> 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 adocumentation 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 preferto 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 areplenty 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 thatpoint (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 peopleare 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 sensethat 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, >-tonyI take this opportunity to mention that I revised thoroughly "R for beginners" (currently on CRAN in French and in English). The new version is now about 60 pages long (30 for the previous one). For the moment, only a French version is available, you can download it with the following link (only by FTP): ftp://evol.isem.univ-montp2.fr/pub/pc/Log-manu/Rdebuts_fr-DRAFT.pdf Translation in other languages is in progress. As usual, comments and suggestions are welcome. Best, Emmanuel Paradis -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 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 _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
The suggestion to include command completion in R has been discussed over the last few days. I just wanted to say two things: - I'm now the Windows maintainer, and command completion is on my wish list for Rgui. It might make sense to have it in the standard console, but that's not up to me, that's Rcore's business. - There are a lot of other things on the wish list, and I haven't even had time to prioritize them, let alone start work on any of them. Certainly I won't be making any changes to Rgui in 1.5.0. Duncan Murdoch -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 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 _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._