[R] How to google for R stuff?

David Cross d.cross at tcu.edu
Thu May 21 14:52:06 CEST 2009


You can also try:

http://www.rseek.org/

Cheers

Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> 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.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> 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.




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