[R] two questions for R beginners
Paul Hiemstra
p.hiemstra at geo.uu.nl
Fri Feb 26 17:19:44 CET 2010
Thomas Adams wrote:
> Paul,
>
> I think your point "you need [to] spend at least a few hours a week on
> it" is key. Since I am not doing statistics daily, more in fits &
> starts as my latest project -may- require, my approach has been more
> task oriented. A less-than-ideal approach. So, I think your suggestion
> is on-the-mark.
>
> Tom
I also see co-workers who would like to work with R, see the benefit of
R etc, but don't have the time to learn and maintain R. But I'm not
really sure how to fix this, it seems impossible to have both easy,
intuitive to use and power and flexibility.
cheers,
Paul
>
>
> Paul Hiemstra wrote:
>> Ivan Calandra wrote:
>>> You are definitely right...
>>> What to do with bad beginner's questions is not a simple issue.
>>>
>>> If a "beginner's mailing list" is created, who will answer to such
>>> questions? And moreover, the beginners won't take advantage of the
>>> other questions (I've personally learned a lot trying to understand
>>> the questions and answers to other's problems). And also, as you
>>> said, the problems might persist.
>>> The beginner's mailing list might be good in one aspect though: the
>>> "experts" who subscribe to it would be willing to help the beginners
>>> to get started with R, knowing that the questions might not be
>>> clearly stated.
>>>
>>> As you pointed out, the mailing list is not the best for basic stuff
>>> (the question is of course "what is basic?"). Not everybody knows
>>> some colleagues who work with R (I'm personally the 1st one to use R
>>> in my lab).
>>> I think, somehow and I have no idea how, documentation and guidance
>>> to search for help should be more accessible as soon as you start
>>> with R. Maybe a _*clear*_ section on the R homepage or in the
>>> "introduction to R" manual like "where to find help", including all
>>> of the most common and useful resources available (from "?" and
>>> RSiteSearch() to R Wiki and Crantastic).
>>>
>> Hi Ivan (and list),
>>
>> I think the main problem is not as much that there isn't structure in
>> the way R provides documentation / tutorials, but that people have a
>> hard time finding the structure. There are task views for certain
>> specific fields, but I think a lot of beginners do not know that they
>> exist. There are separate mailing lists for specific fields, but I
>> often see geographical (my field of expertise) oriented questions on
>> R-help that would fit much better on R-sig-geo.
>>
>> So I think a "O my God, I've downloaded R and what now" tutorial
>> might be a good idea to put very close to the download button of R on
>> CRAN. This tutorial would focus not on how to do things in R, but
>> would provide guidance to the most obvious sources of information
>> such as Task views, specific mailing lists, ways to search list
>> archives, information for beginners how to write a good e-mail etc. I
>> think for a lot of beginners it is not as much the answer to a
>> specific question that they need, but more guidance how to look for
>> answers themselves.
>>
>> But at the end of the day, R is still not very easy to learn when
>> coming from GUI oriented stats programs. In addition, to become
>> reasonably fluent in R, you need spend at least a few hours a week on
>> it. SO I think we can ease the pain for beginners, but not take away
>> that it takes quite some time to become fluent in R.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Paul
>>> I hope that this whole discussion might help to make the R world
>>> better.
>>> Thank you Patrick for initiating it!
>>> Regards,
>>> Ivan
>>>
>>> Le 2/26/2010 15:09, Paul Hiemstra a écrit :
>>>
>>>> Ivan Calandra wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Since you want input from beginners, here are some thoughts
>>>>>
>>>>> I had and still have two big problems with R:
>>>>> - this vectorization thing. I've read many manuals (including R
>>>>> inferno), but I'm still not completely clear about it. In simple
>>>>> examples, it's fine. But when it gets a bit more complex, then...
>>>>> Related to it, the *apply functions are still a bit difficult to
>>>>> understand. When I have to use them, I just try one and see what
>>>>> happens. I don't understand them well enough to know which one I
>>>>> need.
>>>>> - the second problem is where to find the functions/packages I
>>>>> need. There are many options, and that's actually the problem. R
>>>>> Wiki, Rseek, RSiteSearch, Crantastic, etc... When you start with
>>>>> R, you discover that the capabilities of R are almost unlimited
>>>>> and you don't really know where to start, where to find what you
>>>>> need.
>>>>>
>>>>> As noted in earlier posts, the mailing list is really great, but
>>>>> some people are really hard with beginners. It was noted in a
>>>>> discussion a few days ago, but it looks like some don't realize
>>>>> how difficult it is at the beginning to formulate a good question,
>>>>> clear, with self-contained example and so on. Moreover, not
>>>>> everybody speaks English natively. I don't mean that you must
>>>>> help, even when the question is really vague and not clear and
>>>>> whatever. I'm just saying that if you don't want to help (whatever
>>>>> the reason), you don't have to say it badly. But in any cases, the
>>>>> mailing list is still really helpful. As someone noted (sorry I
>>>>> erased the email so I don't remember who), it might be a good idea
>>>>> to split it.
>>>>>
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>
>>>> My 2ct about the mailing list :). I understand that beginners have
>>>> a hard time formulating a good question. But the problem is that we
>>>> can't answer the question when it is unclear. So either I:
>>>>
>>>> - Don't bother answering
>>>> - Try do discuss with the author of the question, taking lots of
>>>> time to find out what exactly is the question.
>>>> - Send a "read the posting guide" answer
>>>>
>>>> I mostly do the first, as I have to get things done during my PhD
>>>> :). So this leaves us with kind of a problem, the person mailing
>>>> the list doesn't have the knowledge to ask the right question, the
>>>> list can't answer properly and consequently, the person mailing the
>>>> list still doesn't get the information he/she needs. We could start
>>>> an R-beginner mailing list, but this would also suffer from this
>>>> problem. What do you guys think?
>>>>
>>>> Maybe the mailing list is not the right medium for really basic
>>>> stuff. For that I would recommend a good R-book or (better) a
>>>> course in R or (even better) some colleagues who work with R that
>>>> you can ask questions to.
>>>>
>>>> cheers,
>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>>> Hope that's what you wanted
>>>>> Ivan
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Le 2/26/2010 08:39, Dieter Menne a écrit :
>>>>>
>>>>>> Patrick Burns wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * What were your biggest misconceptions or
>>>>>>> stumbling blocks to getting up and running
>>>>>>> with R?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> (This derives partly from teaching)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The fact that this xapply-stuff was not idempotent (worse: not
>>>>>> always) and
>>>>>> that you need a monster like do.call() to straighten this out.
>>>>>> Nowadays,
>>>>>> plyr comes close.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The concept of environment. With S it was worse, though.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That you cannot change values "passed by reference". I noted that
>>>>>> the latter
>>>>>> is no problem for students who have not worked with c(++/#)
>>>>>> before. That
>>>>>> there is only one return-result in functions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "[" and the likes as an operator.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 10 years ago, when I started, the message was: S4 is the future,
>>>>>> S3 is
>>>>>> legacy. So I learned S4. Only to never use is in self-written
>>>>>> code later.
>>>>>> Might be different for BioConductor people.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That sometimes you can use vectors not in data= (lattice), and
>>>>>> sometimes not
>>>>>> (ggplot2). Still a VERY confusing inconsistency.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The "why-does-this-not-print" FAQ.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why does par(oma..) not work with lattice?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dieter
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>>> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> [[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.
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
--
Drs. Paul Hiemstra
Department of Physical Geography
Faculty of Geosciences
University of Utrecht
Heidelberglaan 2
P.O. Box 80.115
3508 TC Utrecht
Phone: +3130 274 3113 Mon-Tue
Phone: +3130 253 5773 Wed-Fri
http://intamap.geo.uu.nl/~paul
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