[R] Block comments in R?
Rolf Turner
rolf at erdos.math.unb.ca
Mon Oct 9 00:57:52 CEST 2006
I must say I agree with Richard O'Keefe who wrote:
> I wrote:
> R documentation comments really belong
> in [.Rd] files where help() can find them.
>
> Barry Rowlingson <B.Rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk> replied:
> R documentation comments belong in .Rd files at the moment, but how
> joyous would it be if they could be included in the .R files?
>
> How joyous? About as joyous as a root canal job without anaesthetic.
<etc.>
<snip>
(a) I don't speak Python and I don't believe I ever will; I'm
not sure what Python does; I don't want to know. R does what
I want to do. I don't want to have to learn Python syntax to
do something with which I am very happy doing the R way
currently.
(b) Modularity is a ***Good Thing***. Code should be code,
documentation should be documentation. They should click
together but be kept separate.
(c) The R documentation system is neat, efficient, well
thought out, and well constructed. It is an intrinsic part
of the nature of R. (It's one of the --- many --- reasons I
like R better than Splus, which I no longer use.) Changing
the R documentation system to something (Monty?) Pythonesque
would change the nature of R and make it uglier.
cheers,
Rolf
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