[R] Can't there be a cd command?

[Jan T. Kim]

On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 11:26:55AM -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 5/10/2006 11:10 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> > On 5/10/06, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:

> >> What is it that you find objectionable about having a default for the
> >> file argument in read.table?  I think Martin has said that he doesn't
> >> want non-UI functions to be involved with UI functions, but I don't see
> >> that:  if your code works now, it will be completely unaffected by
> >> setting a default for the argument.  (Sorry if I summarized the argument
> >> incorrectly, Martin, I didn't look it up.)
> > 
> > That would be my objection too.  UI should not be tied to the non-UI core.
> > Its basically a loose coupling argument.
> 
> I don't accept that argument, because in R everything* is interactive. 
> There isn't a non-UI core.  The function arguments are part of the user 
> interface.

It seems to me that there might be a misunderstanding here; as the term
"user" is used to refer to a person interacting with the computer on
the one hand, and to refer to a programmer using R on the other hand.

Everything being "part of the user interface", in the sense of
every user-visible function being part of the API, does not and should
not imply that everything should be interactive.

In my experience, interactivity is a rather double-edged thing: On the
one hand, it facilitates learning and exploration, but on the other
hand, its improper use is frequently detrimental to reproducibility of
scientific computation.

Best regards, Jan
-- 
 +- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+
 |             email: jtk at cmp.uea.ac.uk                               |
 |             WWW:   http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/people/jtk             |
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