[R-gui] Re: R-SIG-GUI Digest, Vol 20, Issue 7
Pedro Valero
Pedro.Valero-Mora at uv.es
Thu Nov 18 10:03:36 CET 2004
Philippe,
I think your impressions are quite accurate: experts on statistics are more
interested on programming statistical problems than user interfaces, and
non experts would like to have GUI's but they do not have the skills.
You may think that this problem could be solved technically. If tools for
programming graphical interfaces were available, experts might use them to
produce good GUI's. However, technique only is probably not enough. It is
necessary a culture that promotes this behaviour.
We might learn from past similar experiences. An statistical environment
that enjoyed certain success before R came was Lisp-Stat. Lisp-Stat had
superb user interface capabilities at the time if came up. Capabilities
that, nowadays, are probably not very impressive but that, if available in
R, would be sufficient for many purposes. However, experience showed that
the people programming in Lisp-Stat very often did not put as much effort
on the graphical interface as they put on the statistical programming.
Lisp-Stat is now basically dead but we still can learn something from it:
programmers may not program user interfaces even though they have the tools.
My impression is that commercial programs will continue leading the GUI
efforts in the close future. Free software written by statisticians
interested on statistics will not have the bells and whistles we are used
to see in commercial software in the close future. After all, software
companies estimate that the programming effort of the GUI of a typical
application is about the 60% or 80% of the program. Only paid people is
probably to be very excited about carrying out this effort.
The only solution I see for the problem is a change in attitude about the
importance of the problem of user interfaces. This change of attitude
should lead to increasing the reward available at academic places for
working in this area. After all, at this moment, most of the people see the
statistical part as the "ice cream" and the interface as the "topping" of
statistical systems. In other words, not many people believe that the
interfaces, GUI or not, suppose an academic challenge that deserve academic
reward. As a consequence, there are not journals, books or conferences
discussing methods, techniques, case stories or comparisons of features of
people trying to develop good interfaces. The developments on this area do
not accumulate. Hence, if the attitude about developing interfaces does not
change, it is very difficult that many people will get involved on
programming them, and the progress is going to be very limited.
You might remember the times were programming statistical software was a
second class activity and it did not deserve academical reward. Now, things
have changed and programmers of statistical software enjoy great reputation
for carrying out their work. So, books and papers on statistical systems
are among the most cited and read by everybody. Journals like JCGS,
encouraging the publication of papers with such contents have contributed
to such state of things. Who knows, programming of good interfaces might
reach a similar status some day.
At 12:24 17/11/2004, you wrote:
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>Today's Topics:
>
> 1. The hidden costs of GPL software? (Philippe Grosjean)
> 2. Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software? (Jan P. Smit)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:53:28 +0100
>From: "Philippe Grosjean" <phgrosjean at sciviews.org>
>Subject: [R-gui] The hidden costs of GPL software?
>To: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>, <r-sig-gui at stat.math.ethz.ch>
>Message-ID: <200411170955.iAH9toV21278008 at hedwig1.umh.ac.be>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>Hello,
>
>In the latest 'Scientific Computing World' magazine (issue 78, p. 22), there
>is a review on free statistical software by Felix Grant ("doesn't have to
>pay good money to obtain good statistics software"). As far as I know, this
>is the first time that R is even mentioned in this magazine, given that it
>usually discuss commercial products.
>
>In this article, the analysis of R is interesting. It is admitted that R is
>a great software with lots of potentials, but: "All in all, R was a good
>lesson in the price that may have to be paid for free software: I spent many
>hours relearning some quite basic things taken for granted in the commercial
>package." Those basic things are releated with data import, obtention of
>basic plots, etc... with a claim for a missing more intuitive GUI in order
>to smooth a little bit the learning curve.
>
>There are several R GUI projects ongoing, but these are progressing very
>slowly. The main reason is, I believe, that a relatively low number of
>programmers working on R are interested by this field. Most people wanting
>such a GUI are basic user that do not (cannot) contribute... And if they
>eventually become more knowledgeable, they tend to have other interests.
>
>So, is this analysis correct: are there hidden costs for free software like
>R in the time required to learn it? At least currently, for the people I
>know (biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, ...), this is perfectly true.
>This is even an insurmountable barrier for many of them I know, and they
>have given up (they come back to Statistica, Systat, or S-PLUS using
>exclusively functions they can reach through menus/dialog boxes).
>
>Of course, the solution is to have a decent GUI for R, but this is a lot of
>work, and I wonder if the intrinsic mechanism of GPL is not working against
>such a development (leading to a very low pool of programmers actively
>involved in the elaboration of such a GUI, in comparison to the very large
>pool of competent developers working on R itself).
>
>Do not misunderstand me: I don't give up with my GUI project, I am just
>wondering if there is a general, ineluctable mechanism that leads to the
>current R / R GUI situation as it stands,... and consequently to a "general
>rule" that there are indeed most of the time "hidden costs" in free
>software, due to the larger time required to learn it. I am sure there are
>counter-examples, however, my feeling is that, for Linux, Apache, etc... the
>GUI (if there is one) is often a way back in comparison to the potentials in
>the software, leading to a steep learning curve in order to use all these
>features.
>
>I would be interested by your impressions and ideas on this topic.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Philippe Grosjean
>
>..............................................<°}))><........
> ) ) ) ) )
>( ( ( ( ( Prof. Philippe Grosjean
> ) ) ) ) )
>( ( ( ( ( Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
> ) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone
>( ( ( ( ( Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles
> ) ) ) ) ) 6, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium
>( ( ( ( (
> ) ) ) ) ) phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.33.12
>( ( ( ( ( email: Philippe.Grosjean at umh.ac.be
> ) ) ) ) )
>( ( ( ( ( web: http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum
> ) ) ) ) )
>..............................................................
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:49:24 +0700
>From: "Jan P. Smit" <jps at srres.com>
>Subject: [R-gui] Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software?
>To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch, r-sig-gui at stat.math.ethz.ch
>Cc: Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org>
>Message-ID: <419B2CB4.7010708 at srres.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>Dear Phillippe,
>
>Very interesting. The URL of the article is
>http://www.scientific-computing.com/scwsepoct04free_statistics.html.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Jan Smit
>
>
>Philippe Grosjean wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > In the latest 'Scientific Computing World' magazine (issue 78, p. 22),
> there
> > is a review on free statistical software by Felix Grant ("doesn't have to
> > pay good money to obtain good statistics software"). As far as I know, this
> > is the first time that R is even mentioned in this magazine, given that it
> > usually discuss commercial products.
> >
> > In this article, the analysis of R is interesting. It is admitted that R is
> > a great software with lots of potentials, but: "All in all, R was a good
> > lesson in the price that may have to be paid for free software: I spent
> many
> > hours relearning some quite basic things taken for granted in the
> commercial
> > package." Those basic things are releated with data import, obtention of
> > basic plots, etc... with a claim for a missing more intuitive GUI in order
> > to smooth a little bit the learning curve.
> >
> > There are several R GUI projects ongoing, but these are progressing very
> > slowly. The main reason is, I believe, that a relatively low number of
> > programmers working on R are interested by this field. Most people wanting
> > such a GUI are basic user that do not (cannot) contribute... And if they
> > eventually become more knowledgeable, they tend to have other interests.
> >
> > So, is this analysis correct: are there hidden costs for free software like
> > R in the time required to learn it? At least currently, for the people I
> > know (biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, ...), this is perfectly true.
> > This is even an insurmountable barrier for many of them I know, and they
> > have given up (they come back to Statistica, Systat, or S-PLUS using
> > exclusively functions they can reach through menus/dialog boxes).
> >
> > Of course, the solution is to have a decent GUI for R, but this is a lot of
> > work, and I wonder if the intrinsic mechanism of GPL is not working against
> > such a development (leading to a very low pool of programmers actively
> > involved in the elaboration of such a GUI, in comparison to the very large
> > pool of competent developers working on R itself).
> >
> > Do not misunderstand me: I don't give up with my GUI project, I am just
> > wondering if there is a general, ineluctable mechanism that leads to the
> > current R / R GUI situation as it stands,... and consequently to a "general
> > rule" that there are indeed most of the time "hidden costs" in free
> > software, due to the larger time required to learn it. I am sure there are
> > counter-examples, however, my feeling is that, for Linux, Apache,
> etc... the
> > GUI (if there is one) is often a way back in comparison to the
> potentials in
> > the software, leading to a steep learning curve in order to use all these
> > features.
> >
> > I would be interested by your impressions and ideas on this topic.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Philippe Grosjean
> >
> > ..............................................<°}))><........
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( ( Prof. Philippe Grosjean
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( ( Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
> > ) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone
> > ( ( ( ( ( Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles
> > ) ) ) ) ) 6, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium
> > ( ( ( ( (
> > ) ) ) ) ) phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.33.12
> > ( ( ( ( ( email: Philippe.Grosjean at umh.ac.be
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( ( web: http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ..............................................................
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
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>
>
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>End of R-SIG-GUI Digest, Vol 20, Issue 7
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