[R] The hidden costs of GPL software?
Mike Prager
Mike.Prager at noaa.gov
Thu Nov 18 15:59:36 CET 2004
At 11/18/2004 07:01 AM Thursday, Thomas Schönhoff wrote:
>To sum up, what I am in need to is an extensive example based help-system,
>focused on how to do things in R. In parts this is already there, i.e.
>SimpleR from Verzani (contributed docs area) etc.
>
>Hopefully I can contribute to this in future, since it is seems to me
>invaluable to learn R by going through example-based lessons (some are
>found in vignette() ).
>These are much more comprehensible to me than those short reference like
>entries in the current help-system, mostly due to their very technical
>approach (same is to be said about the official GNU R manuals, especially
>"The R Language", which wasn't a great help for me when I took my first
>look at GNU R). In this context something like the GuideMaps of Vista come
>to my mind!
>
>But to be as clear as possible, I think GNU R is great and I appreciate
>all the efforts done by the R core team and associates!
>
>Nevertheless it seems to be valuable to re-think the help-system in R with
>respect to those who may have a good understanding in statistics, but
>lacking some basic experiences in how to introduce themselves to
>sophisticated world of R/S languages.
(I posted similar material before, but it was moved to R-devel, and I
wanted to express a bit of it here.)
I have frequently felt, like Thomas, that what could make R easier to use
is not a GUI, but a help system more focused on tasks and examples, rather
than on functions and packages. This has obvious and large costs of
development, and I am unlikely to contribute much myself, for reasons of
time and ability. Yet, I mention it for the sake of this discussion.
Such a help system could be a tree (or key) structure in which through
making choices, the user's description of the desired task is gradually
narrowed. At the end of each twig of the tree would be a list of suggested
functions for solving the problem, hyperlinked into the existing help
system (which in many ways is outstanding and has evolved just as fast as R
itself). This could be coupled with the continued expansion of the number
of examples in the help system.
Now I must express appreciation for what exists already that helps in this
regard: MASS (in its many editions), Introductory Statistics with R,
Simple R, and the other free documentation that so many authors have
generously provided. Not to mention the superlative contribution of R
itself, and the work of the R development team. It is beyond my
understanding how something so valuable and well thought out has been
created by people with so many other responsibilities.
Mike
--
Michael Prager, Ph.D.
Population Dynamics Team, NMFS SE Fisheries Science Center
NOAA Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research
Beaufort, North Carolina 28516
http://shrimp.ccfhrb.noaa.gov/~mprager/
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