[R] Proposal for New R List: Criticism? Comments?

[John Fox]

Dear Martin,

Thanks for pointing this out -- I'm ashamed to say that I forgot about
\concept{} entries. As you say (aside from people stupidly forgetting that
they exist), the problem is to get people to use them. How about requiring
one or more concept entries for each help file?

Regards,
 John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Maechler [mailto:maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch] 
> Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 7:57 AM
> To: John Fox
> Cc: 'R-help'
> Subject: RE: [R] Proposal for New R List: Criticism? Comments?
> 
> Hi John et al.
> 
> I'm coming late to this thread (because of vacation),
> 
> >>>>> "JohnF" == John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca>
> >>>>>     on Fri, 10 Sep 2004 10:56:51 -0400 writes:
> 
>     JohnF> Dear Brian et al.,
> 
>     JohnF> Jonathan's search site is excellent -- I use it
>     JohnF> frequently -- and for some reason new users seem
>     JohnF> unaware of help.search(), which, despite the fact
>     JohnF> that it searches only in installed packages, I also
>     JohnF> find very useful.
> 
> yes and yes.
> 
>     JohnF> A couple of comments, however: First, if help pages
>     JohnF> from all packages were available at a central
>     JohnF> location -- e.g., at CRAN -- help.search() could have
>     JohnF> an option to search that location. Second, I still
>     JohnF> feel that it would be useful to provide some other
>     JohnF> way of searching the space of all available
>     JohnF> functions. One idea, which I mentioned in an earlier
>     JohnF> message on this thread, would be a keyword system
>     JohnF> (again, different from the current set of standard
>     JohnF> keywords). 
> 
> \concept{}  was introduced for this
> 
>     JohnF> The keywords could be accessed by help.search() 
> 
> and this happens (by default) for \concept{} entries
> 
>     JohnF> and also compiled into an index.
> 
> this doesn't happen yet.
> 
> The ``real problem'' of course is that package authors need 
> to write all these \concept{} entries before such an index 
> can really become useful.
> 
> Martin Maechler
> 
>     >> -----Original Message-----
>     >> From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk] 
>     >> Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 5:26 AM
>     >> To: Jonathan Baron
>     >> Cc: Adaikalavan Ramasamy; John Fox; R-help; 'Berton Gunter'
>     >> Subject: Re: [R] Proposal for New R List: Criticism? Comments?
>     >> 
>     >> On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Jonathan Baron wrote:
>     >> 
>     >> > On 09/10/04 03:54, Adaikalavan Ramasamy wrote:
>     >> > >There is another issue to be considered. Currently you 
>     >> need to have 
>     >> > >the relevant packages installed before help.search() bring 
>     >> it up. My 
>     >> > >work around this is to install all available 
> packages just in case 
>     >> > >the function I need is nestled in some non-standard 
>     >> packages. I also 
>     >> > >update them rather frequently.
>     >> > 
>     >> > I do this too, at my search site (where 
>     >> "frequently"=monthly) and you 
>     >> > can search functions only, and use Boolean search 
> expressions and 
>     >> > phrases.
>     >> > 
>     >> > But right now the entire set of packages takes about 885 
>     >> meg (if I'm 
>     >> > reading du correctly), which is less than my very modest 
>     >> collection of 
>     >> > digital photos, and a tiny fraction of a 3-year-old 
> standard hard 
>     >> > disk.  In other words, it is no big deal to install all the 
>     >> packages 
>     >> > if you have your own computer.
>     >> 
>     >> I am seeing about 520Mb for all base + CRAN packages under 
>     >> 1.9.1, and it will be rather less under 2.0.0 as more parts 
>     >> are stored compressed.
>     >> BioC is a lot larger.
>     >> 
>     >> It is however, a BIG deal to install *all* the packages and 
>     >> am I currently 10 short since they depend on other software 
>     >> that I do not have a licence for or will not compile (and 
>     >> there are three others I cannot reinstall using current gcc). 
>     >> On AMD64 and Solaris there are several others, and something 
>     >> like 20 do not install on Windows.  (I could use 
>     >> --install-fake as the CRAN checks do, but I have the almost 
>     >> complete set installed to test R changes, not test packages.)
>     >> 
>     >> So I do see some merit in having a full-text search for R 
>     >> help available at some URL, as Jonathan has kindly provided.
>     >> 
>     >> -- 
>     >> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
>     >> Professor of Applied Statistics,  
> http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
>     >> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
>     >> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
>     >> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595