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Andrew Robinson

2006-May-04 05:29 UTC

[R] New-user support package - suggestions?

Dear Community,

This is largely a repost with some new information.

I'm interested in developing a package that could ease the
command-line learning curve for new users.  It would provide more
detailed syntax checking and commentary as feedback.  It would try to
anticipate common new-user errors, and provide feedback to help
correct them. 

As a trivial example, instead of
> mean(c(1,2,NA))[1] NA

we might have
> mean(c(1,2,NA))[1] NA
Warning: your data contains missing values.  If you wish to ignore
these for the purposes of computing the mean, use the argument: 
"na.rm=TRUE".

I'm interested in any thoughts that people have about this idea -
what errors do you commonly see, and how can they be dealt with?

I have funding for 6 weeks of programming support for this idea.  All
suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,

Andrew
-- 
Andrew Robinson  
Department of Mathematics and Statistics            Tel: +61-3-8344-9763
University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia         Fax: +61-3-8344-4599
Email: a.robinson at ms.unimelb.edu.au         http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au

Uwe Ligges

2006-May-04 07:13 UTC

head link

[R] New-user support package - suggestions?

Andrew Robinson wrote:
> Dear Community,
> 
> This is largely a repost with some new information.
> 
> I'm interested in developing a package that could ease the
> command-line learning curve for new users.  It would provide more
> detailed syntax checking and commentary as feedback.  It would try to
> anticipate common new-user errors, and provide feedback to help
> correct them. 
Re. "anticipate", see

install.packages("fortunes")
library("fortunes")
fortune("anticipate")

> As a trivial example, instead of
> 
> 
>>mean(c(1,2,NA))
> 
> [1] NA
> 
> we might have
> 
> 
>>mean(c(1,2,NA))
> 
> [1] NA
> Warning: your data contains missing values.  If you wish to ignore
> these for the purposes of computing the mean, use the argument: 
> "na.rm=TRUE".

Attention. If you give help like this, you will implicitly teach users 
not to read the manuals but trust on R's warning/error messages and 
suggestions.
Some students won't ask the question "why do my data contain NAs"
but
will start using na.rm=TRUE, even if the error was in a prior step and 
no NAs were expected at all.

> I'm interested in any thoughts that people have about this idea -
> what errors do you commonly see, and how can they be dealt with?
> 
> I have funding for 6 weeks of programming support for this idea.  All
> suggestions are welcome.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Andrew

Your project sounds very ambitious. I anticipate you will be 
disappointed after 6 weeks of "programming", because you won't
have
achieved very much. I'd rather try to spend 6 weeks of time for some 
more promising projects...

Just my first thoughts, just go on with your project if you are convinced.

Best,
Uwe Ligges

Søren Højsgaard

2006-May-04 12:55 UTC

head link

[R] New-user support package - suggestions?

And which editor would that be??? And don't say Emacs+ESS - people who are
able to use Emacs+ESS would not need such videos!
Best
S?ren 
> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: Frank E Harrell Jr [mailto:f.harrell at vanderbilt.edu] 
> Sendt: 4. maj 2006 14:30
> Til: S?ren H?jsgaard
> Cc: Uwe Ligges; Andrew Robinson; R-Help Discussion
> Emne: Re: [R] New-user support package - suggestions?
> 
> S?ren H?jsgaard wrote:
> > Dear Andrew,
> >  
> > I tend to agree with Uwe. 
> >  
> > A perhaps more useful approach for achieving your goal 
> would be to create a video introduction to R. On 
> http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/ you can find examples of 
> such introductory videos for programming, for example in C#.
> >  
> > I've experimented a little myself with creating such videos 
> for "getting started" with R, i.e. installing R, installing 
> the Tinn-R editor, using the help facilities, finding things 
> on CRAN. It is not as easy to do as I had thought... (If 
> anyone is interested in the result, please drop me a line and 
> I'll send you a link).. There are various relevant pieces of 
> software around, for example camtasia (commercial) and 
> camstudio (freeware)..
> >  
> > Such a set of videos could make it onto CRAN...
> >  
> > Best
> > S?ren
> 
> But please choose an editor that works on all platforms.
> 
> Frank
> 
> >  
> >  
> >  
> > 
> > ________________________________
> > 
> > Fra: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch p? vegne af Uwe Ligges
> > Sendt: to 04-05-2006 09:13
> > Til: Andrew Robinson
> > Cc: R-Help Discussion
> > Emne: Re: [R] New-user support package - suggestions?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Andrew Robinson wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>Dear Community,
> >>
> >>This is largely a repost with some new information.
> >>
> >>I'm interested in developing a package that could ease the 
> >>command-line learning curve for new users.  It would provide more 
> >>detailed syntax checking and commentary as feedback.  It 
> would try to 
> >>anticipate common new-user errors, and provide feedback to help 
> >>correct them.
> > 
> > 
> > Re. "anticipate", see
> > 
> > install.packages("fortunes")
> > library("fortunes")
> > fortune("anticipate")
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >>As a trivial example, instead of
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>mean(c(1,2,NA))
> >>
> >>[1] NA
> >>
> >>we might have
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>mean(c(1,2,NA))
> >>
> >>[1] NA
> >>Warning: your data contains missing values.  If you wish to ignore 
> >>these for the purposes of computing the mean, use the argument:
> >>"na.rm=TRUE".
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Attention. If you give help like this, you will implicitly 
> teach users 
> > not to read the manuals but trust on R's warning/error messages
and
> > suggestions.
> > Some students won't ask the question "why do my data 
> contain NAs" but 
> > will start using na.rm=TRUE, even if the error was in a 
> prior step and 
> > no NAs were expected at all.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >>I'm interested in any thoughts that people have about this 
> idea - what 
> >>errors do you commonly see, and how can they be dealt with?
> >>
> >>I have funding for 6 weeks of programming support for this 
> idea.  All 
> >>suggestions are welcome.
> >>
> >>Cheers,
> >>
> >>Andrew
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Your project sounds very ambitious. I anticipate you will be 
> > disappointed after 6 weeks of "programming", because you
won't have
> > achieved very much. I'd rather try to spend 6 weeks of time 
> for some 
> > more promising projects...
> > 
> > Just my first thoughts, just go on with your project if you 
> are convinced.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Uwe Ligges
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide! 
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide! 
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
>                       Department of Biostatistics   
> Vanderbilt University
>

hadley wickham

2006-May-04 13:09 UTC

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[R] New-user support package - suggestions?

I started on such a project a while ago for my personal use when
creating packages.  Often I forget to use na.rm and never test my
functions with code containing missing values, and then later on have
to search back through my code and ensure I've used na.rm=TRUE
everywhere.

I didn't get very far, because at that point my code was segfaulting R
on the mac.  I've just re-looked at my code and it seems to run ok
now.  This might at least get you started:


trace_all <- function(fs, tracer) {
	sapply(fs, trace, tracer=tracer, print=FALSE)
	return()
}

functions_with_arg <- function(arg, pos) {
	fs <- ls(pos=pos)
	present <- unlist(lapply(fs, function(x) is.function(get(x)) && 
!is.null(formals(x)[[arg]])))
	
	fs[present]
}

#trace_all(list("sum"), quote(if (!na.rm) warning("na.rm =
FALSE")))

#trace_all(functions_with_arg("na.rm", "package:base"),
quote(if
(!na.rm) warning("na.rm = FALSE")))

Other functionality I'd like to see in such a package (from my needs
as a developer) would be:

 * enforcing use of TRUE and FALSE (would just need to copy code used
when running examples in R CMD check)

 * always using drop = FALSE in [

But they should take about 15 minutes to implement, so I'm not sure
what you'd do for the rest of the 6 weeks.

Hadley

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