[R] advice/opinion on "<-" vs "=" in teaching R

[Jim Lemon]

On 01/15/2010 10:08 PM, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> Barry Rowlingson wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 3:45 AM, Erin Hodgess<erinm.hodgess at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi R People:
>>>
>>> I'm teaching a statistical computing class using R starting next week
>>> (yay!) and I have an opinion type question, please.
>>>
>>> I'm old school and use "<-" in an assignment.
>>>
>>>
>>   You call that 'old school'?? I still use ' x_1'! Of course ESS turns the
>> underscore into '<-' magically.
>>
>>   Perhaps these guys should redo their tests with slightly different syntax:
>>
>> http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper1.pdf
>>
>> Barry
>>
>
> I do like their experimental design:
>
> "In a bizarre event which one of the authors insists was planned, and
> the other maintains was a really stupid idea that just happened to work,
> the test was first administered to about 30 students on a...."
>
This is, of course, entirely consistent with the concept of outliers as 
potentially patentable discoveries that was discussed only a few days ago...

Jim