[R-gui] Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software?

[Duncan Murdoch]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 03:24:01 -0800 (PST), Michael Grant
<mwgrant2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>Hmmmm, interesting thread and minds will not be
>changed but regarding GUIs...I thought S (aka R) was a
>PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE with a statistical and numerical
>slant, and not a statistics application. ;O)  
>
>Certainly there is an important place for GUIs but I
>believe that it is very much overemphasized in modern
>computer culture. My experience and bias--and I
>started in the 1960's-- is that except for 'trivial'
>uses, GUIs are a detriment to any reasonably complex
>CREATIVE computational task. 

I have to disagree with you.  What you say might be true about *bad*
GUIs, but I find nothing more frustrating than the lack of programming
support in R.

What's a nice GUI for programming?

You should be able to edit code, and have R parse the code that you
are editing.  The current disconnect between the source file and what
is in R makes debugging really painful.  I'd like to single step
through a function, and when I spot the error, *edit it right there*.
I'd like to be able to use the mouse to find the contents of a
variable as I'm single stepping.  I'd like code-completion to be
possible in the editor, and help hints based on what I'm typing.

All of these things have existed for years in IDEs (i.e. programming
GUIs), but most are not in R's GUIs.  

>They are adequate for the
>simple, common task. But even then, typing a command
>or two is not overly taxing--- particularly when
>compared to navigating layer upon layer of submenus as
>is some times needed. If I need to, I will add a
>little syntactical sugaring when coding and move on. 

That's one sort of GUI that R could have, but it's not the only one,
and it's not the one that I'd use.  However, I might start out
students on it.  There's a big benefit to a list of suggestions as
opposed to a big blank space.

>GUIs encourage a passive approach to using computers
>when solving problems. In addition, it is regretable
>that a lot of people in the 'workplace' will carry out
>incomplete and/or incorrect quantitative work because
>of the real or perceived limitations of the particular
>(GUI) apps they are using. There is no inclination to
>go beyond the menu and even then many menu items
>gather 'electronic dust'.

A lot of people do incomplete or incorrect work because they don't
know any better.  It doesn't matter if they're using a GUI or not,
they'll do what they think they know, and get it wrong.

Duncan Murdoch

>Finally, there are times for many of us when work
>'goes home' at the end of the day. That just comes
>with the territory. I (and most others) can not afford
>the luxury of S-plus, Statistica, SPSS, etc. at home.
>So in a sense there is a very real 'loss of
>productivity' cost associated with using commercial
>software. Now that does bring us around to supporting
>R doesn't it? (Mea culpa. And I resolve to do better!)
>What value does one put on the vitality of the R
>community?
>
>Best regards,
>Michael Grant, Ph.D. 
>
>* The requirements for creating packages are on
>target,  and have the desired impact on both the
>quality and breadth of R. 
>
>--- Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> 
>> In the latest 'Scientific Computing World' magazine
>> (issue 78, p. 22), there
>> is a review on free statistical software by Felix
>> Grant ...2.)
>
>_______________________________________________
>R-SIG-GUI mailing list
>R-SIG-GUI at stat.math.ethz.ch
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-gui