[R] New-user support package - suggestions?

[Søren Højsgaard]

And which editor would that be??? And don't say Emacs+ESS - people who are able to use Emacs+ESS would not need such videos!
Best
Søren 

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: Frank E Harrell Jr [mailto:f.harrell at vanderbilt.edu] 
> Sendt: 4. maj 2006 14:30
> Til: Søren Højsgaard
> Cc: Uwe Ligges; Andrew Robinson; R-Help Discussion
> Emne: Re: [R] New-user support package - suggestions?
> 
> Søren Højsgaard wrote:
> > Dear Andrew,
> >  
> > I tend to agree with Uwe. 
> >  
> > A perhaps more useful approach for achieving your goal 
> would be to create a video introduction to R. On 
> http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/ you can find examples of 
> such introductory videos for programming, for example in C#.
> >  
> > I've experimented a little myself with creating such videos 
> for "getting started" with R, i.e. installing R, installing 
> the Tinn-R editor, using the help facilities, finding things 
> on CRAN. It is not as easy to do as I had thought... (If 
> anyone is interested in the result, please drop me a line and 
> I'll send you a link).. There are various relevant pieces of 
> software around, for example camtasia (commercial) and 
> camstudio (freeware)..
> >  
> > Such a set of videos could make it onto CRAN...
> >  
> > Best
> > Søren
> 
> But please choose an editor that works on all platforms.
> 
> Frank
> 
> >  
> >  
> >  
> > 
> > ________________________________
> > 
> > Fra: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch på vegne af Uwe Ligges
> > Sendt: to 04-05-2006 09:13
> > Til: Andrew Robinson
> > Cc: R-Help Discussion
> > Emne: Re: [R] New-user support package - suggestions?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Andrew Robinson wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>Dear Community,
> >>
> >>This is largely a repost with some new information.
> >>
> >>I'm interested in developing a package that could ease the 
> >>command-line learning curve for new users.  It would provide more 
> >>detailed syntax checking and commentary as feedback.  It 
> would try to 
> >>anticipate common new-user errors, and provide feedback to help 
> >>correct them.
> > 
> > 
> > Re. "anticipate", see
> > 
> > install.packages("fortunes")
> > library("fortunes")
> > fortune("anticipate")
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >>As a trivial example, instead of
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>mean(c(1,2,NA))
> >>
> >>[1] NA
> >>
> >>we might have
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>mean(c(1,2,NA))
> >>
> >>[1] NA
> >>Warning: your data contains missing values.  If you wish to ignore 
> >>these for the purposes of computing the mean, use the argument:
> >>"na.rm=TRUE".
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Attention. If you give help like this, you will implicitly 
> teach users 
> > not to read the manuals but trust on R's warning/error messages and 
> > suggestions.
> > Some students won't ask the question "why do my data 
> contain NAs" but 
> > will start using na.rm=TRUE, even if the error was in a 
> prior step and 
> > no NAs were expected at all.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >>I'm interested in any thoughts that people have about this 
> idea - what 
> >>errors do you commonly see, and how can they be dealt with?
> >>
> >>I have funding for 6 weeks of programming support for this 
> idea.  All 
> >>suggestions are welcome.
> >>
> >>Cheers,
> >>
> >>Andrew
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Your project sounds very ambitious. I anticipate you will be 
> > disappointed after 6 weeks of "programming", because you won't have 
> > achieved very much. I'd rather try to spend 6 weeks of time 
> for some 
> > more promising projects...
> > 
> > Just my first thoughts, just go on with your project if you 
> are convinced.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Uwe Ligges
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
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> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
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> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
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> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
>                       Department of Biostatistics   
> Vanderbilt University
>