[R] Pros and Cons of R

[Kingsford Jones]

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 10:26 AM, DavidM.UK <david.merritt at bris.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> I think one significant problem is the lack of 3D graphics support with
> interactivity as per MATLAB ( I here Xgobi offers something hear but I
> couldn't comment having not used it)

Have you tried the rgl package?

install.packages(rgl)
library(rgl)
demo(rgl)

Which provides the ability to rotate, zoom, etc.

Also, GGobi is the newer *Gobi implementation, and R can interface
with it via the rggobi package.


Kingsford Jones

>
> On the GUI issue, I'm split - once you get used to R then it's great just to
> use the command line - but as a language for teaching students (especially
> those outside statistics - E.g. social sciences) a command like can be quite
> daunting. R-Commander I guess addresses this to some degree - though it's no
> match for the GUI offered by S-Plus (in my opinion).
>
> I don't think a working knowledge of any other language can be considered a
> negative - any half decent programmer should be able to pick up new
> languages fairly quickly if they are experienced with one. Previous
> experience is especially useful if moving from matrix style language to R
> (E.g. MATLAB / OCTAVE).
>
> I think your comments on "hard to install on linux" is a fair one -- in
> terms of installing the base system that's fine, but when it comes to
> install packages, I still get tripped up on compilation problems (I just
> posted a topic on one such problem). It is certainly harder than say
> installing a MATLAB tool box.
>
>
> Cheers
>
> David
>
>
> Monica Pisica wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am doing a very informal presentation for my office about R capabilities
>> to deal with and analyze spatial data, display data and maps, and
>> connections with GIS. I've used in my presentation info from the CRAN, the
>> spatial Task view, and the more striking graphics examples from
>> http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/thumbs.php and NCEAS
>> http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/scicomp/GISSeminar/UseCases/MapProdWithRGraphics/OneMapProdWithRGraphics.html
>> together with examples of my own work.
>>
>> I am finishing with pros and cons about R and I am wondering if you can
>> come up with other examples, or comments. Here they are:
>>
>> Pros:
>>
>> - R is a programming environment well suited for statistical analysis.
>> - R is open source and cross platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux).
>> - Fortran, C (C++), and Python wrappers are in place.
>> - Deals well with spatial data, has a robust graphical interface and has
>> an active user group list / forum.
>> - External packages for R are almost daily increasing, most of them based
>> on published up-to-date books and peer-reviewed articles.
>> - R related books – quite a few ….
>>
>> Cons:
>>
>> - R has a very steep learning curve.
>> - There is no perfect "beginner" book.
>> - Experience with other programming languages is a plus / minus.
>> - You can save scripts, but not *.exe.
>> - It is updated several times a year (good) but there are no up-grades.
>> - It seems that it is hard to install correctly under Linux.
>> - Everything you want to do is a command line, minimal GUI.
>> - Memory management problems (depends on your OS), especially when
>> displaying big images at high resolution or working with huge matrices
>> (hundreds of Mb).
>>
>> Also i am wondering if R works under 64 bit computers and if it takes
>> advantage of it.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Monica
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> Refresh_family_safety_052008
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>>
>>
>
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>