[R] How to google for R stuff?

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 20/05/2009 10:01 AM, cryan at binghamton.edu wrote:
> For Google searches, I find that throwing in the term cran on every search helps weed out irrelevant pages.
> 
> For example, instead of 
> 
> r residuals
> 
> I type
> 
> r cran residuals

You are very picky.  When I enter

R residuals

into Google, 8 out of the first 10 hits are for R topics.  Isn't that 
good enough for you?

I think this is true of most Google searches:  the letter R most often 
means the R project.

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> --Chris Ryan
> 
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 09:43:14 -0400
>> From: Luc Villandre <villandl at dms.umontreal.ca>  
>> Subject: Re: [R] How to google for R stuff?  
>> To: Kynn Jones <kynnjo at gmail.com>
>> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
>>
>>
>> Kynn Jones wrote:
>>> Hi!  I'm new to R programming, though I've been programming in other
>>> languages for years.
>>>
>>> One thing I find most frustrating about R is how difficult it is to use
>>> Google (or any other search tool) to look for answers to my R-related
>>> questions.  With languages with even slightly more distinctive names like
>>> Perl, Java, Python, Matlab, OCaml, etc., usually including the name of the
>>> language in the query is enough to ensure that the top hits are relevant.
>>>  But this trick does not work for R, because the letter R appears by itself
>>> in so many pages, that the chaff overwhelms the wheat, so to speak.
>>>
>>> So I'm curious to learn what strategies R users have found to get around
>>> this annoyance.
>>>
>>> TIA!
>>>
>>> KJ
>>>
>>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>   
>> Hi Kynn,
>>
>> I've had this problem too in the beginning. Luckily, my personal 
>> experience has taught me that almost all relevant R-related information 
>> can be found either by searching directly through the archives of the 
>> different R-forums or by using the functions "RSiteSearch()" or 
>> "help.search()". The reference manuals provided with each package 
>> (easily accessible on CRAN) are also invaluable sources of information.
>>
>> Unfortunately, phrasing queries in a way that will yield relevant 
>> results is sometimes hard. Knowledge of the terminology mostly comes 
>>from experience, so patience is in order.
>> Of course, as a last recourse, there's always the mailing list.
>>
>> Bottom line is, I suggest you try to avoid generic search engines and 
>> concentrate your efforts on the different R-forums (note that there are 
>> also package-specific forums).
>>
>> I suspect the more experienced R-users might have better strategies to 
>> propose though...
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -- 
>> *Luc Villandré*
>> /Biostatistician
>> McGill University Health Center -
>> Montreal Children's Hospital Research Institute/
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.