[R] R package classification

[Achim Zeileis]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Jonathan Baron wrote:

> I worry about this proposal because of the following example.

I don't think you will get something that satisfies everyone in all
cases...and not doing it for the reason will result in still having >400
unsorted packages on CRAN.

> One of the packages I use a lot (because it solves a problem I've
> been mulling for 10 years about how to test individual subjects)
> is multtest.  That is part of Bioconductor, and the original
> purpose of it was (apparently) for DNA stuff.  I doubt I ever
> would have thought to look there.

I don't really see the point here: if there were, say, a "DNA analysis"
view and multtest were a part of it, how could that be a problem? If there
were another view "social sciences" or "psychology", say, then multtest
could, of course, also be part of it.
The point of task views would be to have maintained lists of packages that
are useful for a certain taks. And there will obviously be packages that
are suitable for several views and there might be some that are suitable
for not a single one.

> That said, I actually found it by using my own search engine and
> looking for "multiple tests" or something like that.  So I guess
> this proposal isn't so bad, so long as people know about search.

It is not meant to replace any search facilities! It should help users
who come to CRAN and say: I want to do biostatistics with R, which of the
>400 packages do I need to look at?
Z

> Jon
>
> On 01/14/05 18:08, Achim Zeileis wrote:
>  We are currently playing around with a concept of "task views" for CRAN.
>  The idea is that there are maintained "views" on CRAN that highlight which
>  CRAN packages are useful for, say, biostats, econometrics, machine
>  learning, etc. So there should be a web page giving a summary and a
>  package list that could also be queried for automatic package
>  installation.
>
> --
> Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
> Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
> R search page: http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/
>