[R] R reports

[Graham Smith]

> Good grief. Adding a report function is not going to make R less flexible. Don't
> you want to use a tool that's relevant to the rest of the world? That world is
> much bigger then your world. This is ridiculous.

How big a world do you want , Google use R successfully , and it is
being used by NIST to analyse what is happening with the oil disaster
in the Gulf of Mexico.

As an environmental consultant I use R in preference to other programs
I have available (Stata, Statistica and Genstat), partly because of
its flexibility, but a lot because , in conjunction with SWeave,
(which I normally use via Lyx or Orgmode in Emacs) it allows me to
produce clent ready reports. Something I couldn't do with the
reporting facilities with the other programs. Although, it has and is,
taking a lot of learning I am producing client ready reports faster
and of a higher quality than I was before. Working to tight budgets
and tight deadlines this is important.

It has certainly been a lot of hard work to learn, and I am still far
from being where I would like to be. And like you, I moaned about how
easy things were in the other programs, but until you have experienced
the full power of R,and yes, the flexibility it gives, you really are
commenting from a platform of ignorance.

I would listen carefully to people like Frank Harrell, who has a lot
of experience of SAS and R, as well as a lot of experience of working
in the very real world of medical research.

I would also strongly encourage you to take R for what it is, and
learn the many different ways of producing reports. It is a lot to
learn, but in my mind well worth it.

Graham