[R] Re: reading in columns of a data set as factors

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "Faheem" == Faheem Mitha <faheem at email.unc.edu> writes:

    Faheem> Dear Dr. Venables, Did you mean to write

		....
    Faheem> I am planning to buy the V&R third edition, possibly both
    Faheem> volumes, the data analysis one and the programming one, though
    Faheem> they are rather expensive,
(I too was astonished a few months ago
 when I found how much Springer's book prices have increased in general,
 or is that mainly an effect of the rising US dollar ?)

    Faheem> because I am getting a little desperate. I have had serious
    Faheem> problems finding sufficiently detailed documentation about
    Faheem> Splus/R. The online help is often very cryptic, and much of the
    Faheem> other available documentation is either severely incomplete or
    Faheem> outdated.
as a probable co-author of much of this documentation, I'd like to find out
what is cryptic and even more what is ``severely incomplete or outdated''.

{More helpful than publicly critizing,
 would be to send specific suggestions for improvements; 
 since R has been a huge community effort ...
 We *do* appreciate bug reports on (and contributions to) documentation!
}

    Faheem> The only other option appears to be reading the
    Faheem> source code, something which I don't feel quite up to, and
    Faheem> which is, in any case, an option currently only available in R.
"only"..  why is R not enough?  ;-)

Regards,

Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>	http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/
Seminar fuer Statistik, ETH-Zentrum  LEO D10	Leonhardstr. 27
ETH (Federal Inst. Technology)	8092 Zurich	SWITZERLAND
phone: x-41-1-632-3408		fax: ...-1228			<><
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
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
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._