I am trying to do what is perhaps the most basic procedure which can be done with the R software. Under Windows XP Home Edition, I want to get a copy of the function "gam," then put it in and use it. I intentionaly use informal terms, rather than technical terms whose exact meaning I might or might not know. I am finding this extremely frustrating. Every time I try to do anything, all I get is error messages. Hey, this isn't rocket science; there are only three or four or five steps involved. Well, what are they? There is all this opaque terminology. There are libraries, and packages, and one downloads them, loads them, and installs them, but just what all this means is unclear. One example among many: I tell it library (gam) all I get is an error message. Error in library (gam) : there is no package called 'gam' Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something different? For example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not yet been downloaded? I did download and install the 2.4.1 flavor (version?) of the gui. I infer, reading between the lines a bit, that there may be a sort of standard procedure for setting things up, perhaps downloading and installing the utils package, or something. The R software has much gold in it, but, as far as learnability/usability is concerned, I give it poor marks. Tom Jones DrJones at alum.MIT.edu
>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas L Jones <jones3745 at verizon.net> >>>>> on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:28:33 -0500 writes:Thomas> I am trying to do what is perhaps the most basic procedure which can be done Thomas> with the R software. Thomas> Under Windows XP Home Edition, I want to get a copy of the function "gam," Thomas> then put it in and use it. I intentionaly use informal terms, rather than Thomas> technical terms whose exact meaning I might or might not know. Thomas> I am finding this extremely frustrating. Every time Thomas> I try to do anything, all I get is error Thomas> messages. So have you really read (and tried to understand) the "Introduction to R" that's web- available and comes built into R? Thomas> only three or four or five steps involved. Well, Thomas> what are they? There is all this opaque Thomas> terminology. There are libraries, and packages, and Thomas> one downloads them, loads them, and installs them, Thomas> but just what all this means is unclear. Thomas> One example among many: I tell it Thomas> library (gam) all I get is an error message. Thomas> Error in library (gam) : there is no package called 'gam' Thomas> Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something different? For Thomas> example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not yet been Thomas> downloaded? Well it means that "for your version of R" there is no package called 'gam' available, i.e. "what it says" or do you expect software to tell you something about the world at large, namely that there is no R package named 'gam' on the whole wide world ? :-) [ BTW, for using a more modern version of gam(), there's the recommended package 'mgcv' - which you don't have to install : library(mgcv) help(gam) .... ] Thomas> I did download and install the 2.4.1 flavor Thomas> (version?) of the gui. I infer, reading between the Thomas> lines a bit, that there may be a sort of standard Thomas> procedure for setting things up, perhaps downloading Thomas> and installing the utils package, or something. Thomas> The R software has much gold in it, but, as far as Thomas> learnability/usability is concerned, I give it poor marks. Well it is recommended that you learn it from a human rather than from "itself". One way to learn from humans is by reading books, manuals, .... and for R, there are quite a few, both freely available with R and on the web, and others "in a bookstore near you" ... A more comfortable way for some is to attend a course / class... I hope you can bear the somewhat flippy tone of my answer,... I'm just trying to counter your own humorous one ;-) :-) Regards, Martin Thomas> Tom Jones Thomas> DrJones at alum.MIT.edu Thomas> ______________________________________________ Thomas> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list Thomas> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help Thomas> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ that also may be a quite useful resource to read ...
On Apr 12, 2007, at 11:28 PM, Thomas L Jones wrote:> library (gam) all I get is an error message. > > Error in library (gam) : there is no package called 'gam' > > Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something > different? For > example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not > yet been > downloaded?It means "there is no package called 'gam' in your computer at this moment". You need to download it first. You can probably do this through the application menus. I am on a Mac, but the menus should be similar. I have a "Packages&Data" menu, that has a "Package Installer" item. Alternatively, you can use the "install.packages" command I think: install.packages("gam") R has a bit of a learning curve, you'll probably want to read some of the basic guides first, if you haven't yet. Have a look at these: http://www.math.csi.cuny.edu/Statistics/R/simpleR/ http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.html http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html Haris Skiadas Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Hanover College
> > One example among many: I tell it > > library (gam) all I get is an error message. > > Error in library (gam) : there is no package called 'gam' > > Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something > different? For > example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not > yet been > downloaded?It just means you need to install the library as R comes with only the default libraries. To install the gam library, use the following command: install.packages("gam", dependencies = TRUE) It downloads and installs the gam package and all its dependencies. You can use this for installing any package you find. Cheers, Wee-Jin
Quoting Thomas L Jones <jones3745 at verizon.net>:> I am trying to do what is perhaps the most basic procedure which can be done > with the R software. > > Under Windows XP Home Edition, I want to get a copy of the function "gam," > then put it in and use it. I intentionaly use informal terms, rather than > technical terms whose exact meaning I might or might not know. > > I am finding this extremely frustrating. Every time I try to do anything, > all I get is error messages. Hey, this isn't rocket science; there are only > three or four or five steps involved. Well, what are they? There is all this > opaque terminology. There are libraries, and packages, and one downloads > them, loads them, and installs them, but just what all this means is > unclear. > > One example among many: I tell it > > library (gam) all I get is an error message. > > Error in library (gam) : there is no package called 'gam' > > Well, does this mean what it says, or does it mean something different? For > example, does it mean that such-and-such computer program has not yet been > downloaded? > > I did download and install the 2.4.1 flavor (version?) of the gui. I infer, > reading between the lines a bit, that there may be a sort of standard > procedure for setting things up, perhaps downloading and installing the > utils package, or something. > > The R software has much gold in it, but, as far as learnability/usability is > concerned, I give it poor marks. > > Tom Jones > DrJones at alum.MIT.eduPoor marks? It's not the most user-friendly tool to use, as it requires a little bit of learning[*]... but I find that there's a lot of very useful information if you care to look for it and read it. What you can't do is just type stuff at random and be annoyed that R doesn't understand what you mean. [*] don't you have to learn how to use _any_ tool, anyway? The "Introduction to R" included by default as a pdf with the RGui installation (and accessible via its Help menu) is a very useful introduction to R (surprise!). I'd recommend starting with that, before despairing. There are tons of useful R documentation all over... Jose -- Dr. Jose I. de las Heras Email: J.delasHeras at ed.ac.uk The Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology Phone: +44 (0)131 6513374 Institute for Cell & Molecular Biology Fax: +44 (0)131 6507360 Swann Building, Mayfield Road University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH9 3JR UK