[R] newbie list

[Richard Rowe]

Newbie questions

I think it is partly a matter of culture.  Recently I noticed a spate of 
RTM-level questions coming in from a site where there is great local 
expertise in R and where the students in question could have walked just 20 
steps down the corridor to visit any of 3 very expert users.

Personally I am an inexpert user, but I would still encourage 
even-newer-newbies here to hassle me first and if necessary we can RTM 
together ... it is very therapeutic and often very fast.

In time a more general repository of worked examples accessable through 
CRAN might help.  At the moment the examples tend to be concentrated and 
beginners become uncomfortable when 'clever' methods are used (for example 
in setting up a problem) and they lose touch.  The most successful 
non-paramentric stats text is Siegel, simply because there are numerous 
examples and people can find a reassuring template for their first 
hesitating attempts.

Among other things R is a great statistics resource and here our graduate 
students are now gravitating to it with some speed, thanks to core team, 
contributors  and proselytising visitors,

Richard
Richard Rowe
Senior Lecturer
Department of Zoology and Tropical Ecology, James Cook University
Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia
fax (61)7 47 25 1570
phone (61)7 47 81 4851
e-mail: Richard.Rowe at jcu.edu.au
http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/tbiol/zoology/homepage.html

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