[R] Reasons to Use R

[Andrew Robinson]

Hi Todd,

I guess I don't see the difference between that strategy and using
make to look after scripts, raw data, Sweave files, and (if necessary)
images.  I find that I can get pretty fine-grained control over what
parts of a project need to be rerun by breaking the analysis into
chapters.  I suppose it depends on whether one takes a script-centric
or an object-centric view of a data analysis project.  A script-centric
view is nicer for version control.  I think that make is
centric-neutral :).

Cheers,

Andrew

On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 04:23:54PM -0700, Taylor, Z Todd wrote:
> On Monday, April 09, 2007 3:23 PM, someone named Wilfred wrote:
> 
> > So what's the big deal about S using files instead of memory
> > like R. I don't get the point. Isn't there enough swap space
> > for S? (Who cares anyway: it works, isn't it?) Or are there
> > any problems with S and large datasets? I don't get it. You
> > use them, Greg. So you might discuss that issue.
> 
> S's one-to-one correspondence between S objects and filesystem
> objects is the single remaining reason I haven't completely
> converted over to R.  With S I can manage my objects via
> makefiles.  Corrections to raw data or changes to analysis
> scripts get applied to all objects in the project (and there
> are often thousands of them) by simply typing 'make'.  That
> includes everything right down to the graphics that will go
> in the report.
> 
> How do people live without that?
> 
> --Todd
> -- 
> Why is 'abbreviation' such a long word?
> 
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-- 
Andrew Robinson  
Department of Mathematics and Statistics            Tel: +61-3-8344-9763
University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia         Fax: +61-3-8344-4599
http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~andrewpr
http://blogs.mbs.edu/fishing-in-the-bay/