[R] two questions for R beginners

[Greg Snow]

Patrick,

I would add one more question:

* where did you look for help expecting answers, but did not find them?

If you add hubris to laziness and impatience, you have Larry Wall's 3 virtues of a programmer.

To new users of R who may not understand why Patrick is asking:

Patrick Burns is the author of some great tutorials/references on S/R and is probably looking for questions to answer in his next contribution.

Lately there have been a large number of questions on some fairly basic issues (and some rather complex issues that people expected to be simple/basic).  My initial response (and probably others as well) to some of these requests was to quickly think that the answer is obvious and that the obvious place to look is ..., but then I realize that I am a high school dropout who has been using S/R for over 20 years, majored in statistics but reads Shakespeare for fun, and have been known to saw people in half for the entertainment of others; so I am probably not representative of most beginners.  Fortune(89) probably applies here.  If R beginners will share their frustrations, where they looked but did not find answers (and why they looked there), what would have helped them, etc.  Then we (well probably Patrick mostly) can do more to help the next set of beginners.

It does not matter how good our answers are if they answer the wrong questions or are in places that the questioner never sees them.

"The best way to spread information is to tell someone that it is a secret, the best way to keep it secret is to put it in a manual."

-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Burns
> Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 10:31 AM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] two questions for R beginners
> 
> * What were your biggest misconceptions or
> stumbling blocks to getting up and running
> with R?
> 
> * What documents helped you the most in this
> initial phase?
> 
> I especially want to hear from people who are
> lazy and impatient.
> 
> Feel free to write to me off-list.  Definitely
> write off-list if you are just confirming what
> has been said on-list.
> 
> --
> Patrick Burns
> pburns at pburns.seanet.com
> http://www.burns-stat.com
> (home of 'The R Inferno' and 'A Guide for the Unwilling S User')
> 
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