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

[Joerg van den Hoff]

Manuel López-Ibáñez wrote:
> Jan T. Kim wrote:
>> That's an idea I like very much too -- much better than the currently
>> popular idea of "protecting" users from the "unfriendliness" of
>> programming, anyway...
>>
> 
> It is just my opinion that the amount of mail in R-help speaks volumes 
> about the current "friendliness" [1], or lack thereof, of R. Perhaps I 
> am just the only one who thinks this way...
> 
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability
> 
> 		

I think you are 100% right: the r-help list says it all. needless to 
say, R is a great achievment without any doubt, but claiming that it's 
easy to use (beyond the most basic arithmetics) is really wishful thinking.

I don't think programming R is easier than programming C, for example. 
This is not to say that it takes the same time to solve the same problem 
in both languages, since in R many, many things are already there 
(either in the language (vectorized computations) or in the packages). 
but the quantity 'number of new lines of working code per hour' should 
be about the same.

I have used MATLAB/octave previously. in comparison to R, the MATLAB 
language sure is not pretty, not consistent and less powerful, but 
without any question easier. and of course, the interactive use is 
facilitated by the absence of lots of paranthesis and quotes and the 
way, unknown commands are resolved by looking them up in the search path.

but that's not a situation, one should complain about: R simply cannot 
be everybody's darling.

what I always find a bit strange is the explicit claim/aim to blur the 
distinction between users and programmers: one could postulate the same 
aim (or property) for MATLAB, octave, IDL, or even any other language 
providing an interactive interpreter (python, ruby, Tcl, C++/Cint/root, 
...). in my experience the distinction between users (rather: 
non-programmers) and programmers always is quite sharp.

again, in comparison to MATLAB (where I have some experience) I have 
noted that the 'users' (a.k.a. non-programmers) have more difficulties 
in using R interactively, mainly for the following reasons:

- difficulties in understanding the neccessety for all those paranthesis
   (why can't I just say 'ls'?)
- subsetting ((x), [x], [[x]], $x, $"x", ['x'], ["x"], [["x"]], ... or 
what!?)
- R's strong functional orientation: R encourages writing functions with 
  _lots_ of arguments which you must understand/know of (even if you 
don't touch the defaults) and the user must construct the suitable 
function call and launch it to get his/her results.

of course one can write interactive ('please enter ...') programms, but 
usually does'nt since it 's much more convenient from the programmers 
point of view to utilize the functional approach). in a way R's 
functions behave like UNIX commands including lots of command line 
parameters: they are great for experienced
users but the average guy neither understands

tar    c[bBDeEfFhiklnopPqvwX@[0-7]]    [block]     [tarfile]
      [exclude-file]  {-I include-file  |  -C directory  |  file |
      file} ...

nor

plot(x, y = NULL, type = "p",  xlim = NULL, ylim = NULL,
           log = "", main = NULL, sub = NULL, xlab = NULL, ylab = NULL,
           ann = par("ann"), axes = TRUE, frame.plot = axes,
           panel.first = NULL, panel.last = NULL,
           col = par("col"), bg = NA, pch = par("pch"),
           cex = 1, lty = par("lty"),
           lwd = par("lwd"), asp = NA, ...)

easily.

so, to make a long story short: it would'nt harm avoiding the claim that 
R is 'easy'.  it's probably more of the "you either love it or hate it" 
variety (so the unicycle metaphor occuring in this thread fits very 
well, I believe).

joerg