[R] A long digression on packages

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On 6/5/05, Jim Lemon <bitwrit at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> There are now about 500 packages on CRAN. Some are focused, covering a
> particular area well, easy for the prospective user to discover their
> potential usefulness, while others are less so. 

CRAN Task Views 

   http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Views/

is one way of addressing CRAN organization. 

> I consider the plotrix package 

With respect to graphics, the R command:

   demo(graphics)

provides a demonstration of what can be done in R (maybe plotrix
should have a demo too?) and the site:

   http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/

provides examples of what can be done in R using various packages
and accepts content contributions.

Also the R RSiteSearch function and help.search function are useful for 
discovery although the latter will only find functions in installed libraries.