There have been several constructive responses to John Sorkin's  
comment, but none of them are fully satisfactory.  Of course, if you  
know the name of the function you are looking for, there are lots of  
ways to search — provided that everyone calls the function by a name  
that matches your search.  If you think there might be a function,  
but you don't know the name, then you have to be lucky in how you  
search.  R is a language and the suggestions so far seem to me like  
dictionary suggestions, whereas maybe what John is looking for is  
something more like a thesarus.

R packages are a strange collection, as befits a growing language.   
There are large packages, small packages, good packages (and not so  
good packages), personal mixtures of tools in packages, packages to  
accompany books, superceded packages, unusual packages, everything.   
Above all there are lots of packages.  As the software editor of the  
Journal of Statistical Software I suggested we should review R  
packages.  No one has shown any enthusiasm for this suggestion, but I  
think it would help.  Any volunteers?

Antony Unwin
Professor of Computer-Oriented Statistics and Data Analysis,
Mathematics Institute,
University of Augsburg,
Germany
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

