[R] Adding labels to variables

[Spencer Graves]

      Mon Dieu! 

      I realize that I'm not part of r-devel, but for what it's worth, I 
vastly prefer commands and programming styles that produce code that can 
run without change in both S-Plus and R.  Any move to obsolete in R a 
command commonly used in S-Plus would just make life more difficult for 
those of us who have to live in both the S-Plus and R worlds.  In my 
judgment, where S-Plus and R currently differ, there usually seems to be 
a good reason, and R is usually superior.  One example is the "log" 
options in the probability functions. 

      The suggestion to introduce "usePackage" and obsolete "library" 
reminds me of a 6 week delay in the introduction in France of a US 
automobile, because the French Royal Academy failed to produce without a 
substantial delay an official French word for a new technical term.  The 
automobile could not be sold without the User's Manual in French, and it 
could not be printed without the approval of the French Royal Academy 
for new words. 

      just my 2e-12 cents.  spencer graves

Peter Dalgaard wrote:

>"Mike Prager" <Mike.Prager at noaa.gov> writes:
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>>At 01:01 PM 08/25/2004, Raubertas, Richard wrote:
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>>>As long as the function to load a package is called *library*,
>>>I think your campaign to change common usage is doomed to failure.
>>>      
>>>
>
>Who says it's common usage? It is of course a common fallacy to think
>that everyone else makes the same mistakes as you do... 
> 
>  
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>>Yes, and it's also annoyingly hard to remember -- at least for those
>>of us who don't eat, sleep, and breathe R.
>>    
>>
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>There's a good chance that R-2.x will introduce usePackage() and
>eventually remove library() as a tool for loading packages. 
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