R GUI ( was Re: [R] R Documentation(s)

[Paul E. Johnson]

Peter Dalgaard BSA wrote:
> 
> Actually, I think there are valid reasons for people to want GUI
> interfaces to statistics. One argument that I hear frequently is that
> nonstatisticians tend to do other things than analyse data for
> extended periods of time, and it becomes difficult to remember the
> formalities from one time to the next. So they get scared of the
> prospect of staring empty-minded at the R prompt. 
> 
> As long as you can turn the GUI *off* and use R as usual, I see no
> reason not to have some form of GUI. 

I used SAS to produce some reports that I couldn't make R generate. 
Perhaps R can, I couldn't see how.  The reports from SAS PROC TABULATE
summarize about 100 variables, showing the means & other summaries for
subgroups to allow a side-by side comparison.  I had not used SAS for
several editions, but in edition 8 they have a thing called "Analyst"
where you can point and click on various anaysis/graph types and it
generates a code template, which you can then grab, copy, edit, etc. 
The SAS manuals are, well, almost impossible to understand.  Take a look
at the writup on PROC TABULATE if you don't know what I mean.  But with
analyst, they had a few templates for tables, and I could get the code
for them, and get what I wanted after that.

That kind of thing is very useful because the "infrequent user" often
will not know that a function exists to do something, but he can take a
code example and put it to use.  I don't have many good things to say
about SPSS, but they do have the (seldom used) feature that can generate
code for every gui step you take and a facility to edit and run these
"scripts".  

One of the most intimidating things about R is the seeming endlessness
of it.  I've fiddled with it since version 0.64 or so, and I've
contributed RPMs for the hdf5 data format in R, so I'm not completely
dead weight (just mostly so).  But after all this time I don't quite
have a mental image of its capabilities and boundaries.  A GUI helps
people to see what can be done and how it might fit together.

It has helped me a great deal that some of the kind people in this list
post R sample programs that they use with their classes. I find I learn
an awful lot by trying to make them work.  In the short term, a list of
these pedagogical resources will do a lot more good than anything else.

-- 
Paul E. Johnson        			email: pauljohn at ukans.edu
Dept. of Political Science     		http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas           		Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045         		FAX: (785) 864-5700
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