[R] Pros and Cons of R

[Spencer Graves]

GREGOR Brian J wrote:
> Monica, here are some other Pros to consider about R:
>   
<snip>
> 2) R facilitates documentation and replication. 
<snip>

      When I finally made the effort to learn how to make R packages, I 
experienced a substantial increase in my productivity.  Before I start 
coding a new functions, I now write a help page including test cases in 
the "examples".  Each function is part of a package.  After the code is 
complete, I "check" (and "build" and "install") the package.  If a 
change to function "A" breaks something in function"B", this usually 
exposes it fairly quickly.  On average, I get working code much faster 
than I did previously.  Moreover, when I'm done, I have (almost for 
free) a package that is reasonably well documented that I can easily 
share with others. 

      This may not belong in a discussion to a group of people who may 
not develop new statistical procedures, but I believe it can help almost 
anyone who develops a procedure that will likely be used more than once 
or twice. 

      Spencer 

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