Kevin,

Although I thought at first it sound like a nice idea it also seems a tough
task!!! Unfortunately Im a epidemiologist and I do not fell able to develop
complex stuff in R.

I did use very few times EpiInfo long ago and in the last four year I
invested a lot of time in R due to my PhD project.

I wondered about some points in this idea of yours.
R is a very powerful and complex tool, so what is epiinfo able to do that R
is not?
In the other way around, what is R is able to do that epiInfo is not?

My guess is that R is able to do most, if not all, analysis epiinfo can.
Thus what are the weak points? EpiInfo is directod to users (most
epidemiologist) which may have basics to moderate understanding of
statistics and like to freindly data entry and dropdown menus and dialog
boxes with more intuitive interface and simple and friendly documentation,
and many options may be confusing, right?

While R is command line software in nature. My own experience was like
banging my head all over for more than a year until I felt myself familiar
enough to not be scared and find ways on my own.

Thus it very very short it would be like... make a package called EpiInfo
that have the strong points of R and the strong points of EpiInfo. This
would include a GUI for R. There are many GUIs for R around for multi and
specific plataform such as Rcommander, Rpad, JGR, VIM, RkWard, SciViews etc
http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/

So ... what would be the advantages for the end user (and also for
developers) worth of such effort?

(1) developing a package would essentially concentrating efforts in the
analysis tool and very few, if any, effort in the the software core. Core
team already made a software fully compatible with any OS. In very very
short it would be an Rcommander with menus for the epi packages already
avaliable (it couldnt be so simple) :)

(2) make a friendly and yet powerfull tool for epidemiologists not initiated
in R.

(3) As far as know R does not have a data entry tool. Very few functions
such as data.entry allow to type in data in a spreadsheet layout. Nothing
similar EpiInfo, EPi6 or EpiData.

In this particular matter (point 3) this package would very encouraging for
the not initiated to use R.

Of course, I can not speak for the core R team neither for the four epi
packages developers already available, but if I was you I would consider
make Rcommander plug-in or a GUI for the epi packages as a first step.

Kind regards and good luck,

Abraço forte e que a força esteja com você,

Dr. Pedro Emmanuel A. A. do Brasil
Instituto de Pesquisa Clínica Evandro Chagas
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz
Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
Av. Brasil 4365
Tel 55 21 3865-9648
email: pedro.brasil@ipec.fiocruz.br
email: emmanuel.brasil@gmail.com

---Apoio aos softwares livres
www.zotero.org - gerenciamento de referências bibliográficas.
www.broffice.org ou www.openoffice.org - textos, planilhas ou apresentações.
www.epidata.dk - entrada de dados.
www.r-project.org - análise de dados.
www.ubuntu.com - sistema operacional

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