[R] list assignment syntax?

[ivo welch]

"what is the problem you are trying to solve?"

elegance, ease, and readability in my programs.

R has morphed from a data manipulation, graphics, and stats program
into my mainstay programming language.  most of this has been a huge
gain.  the addition of the parallel package was another recent big
gain for me.

some of it is a loss.  I particularly lament the fact that I cannot
turn off [silent] recycling (causing great hair loss on my end at
various occasions), no applicable error line number output on error
messages; and some syntax that could be nicer.    this was a prime
example of the latter.

regards, /iaw

[and then there are some impossible syntax desires, like in-string
substitution.  would it not be nice if I could write f("use $a\n")
instead of f(paste("use", a, "\n", sep="")) ?]

[some of my loss relates to my lack of understanding of some of the
magic behind R.  I just stumbled onto the fact that I can obtain loess
x variables with l$x; until then, I was trying to figure out how to
construct names and paste to match what unlist told me.   worse, I
have spotty memory.  you guys reading and helping out people like me,
plus the google archives here, are angels.  without your help, I could
not use R.]


----
Ivo Welch (ivo.welch at gmail.com)