[R-sig-ME] Is anyone using the lmList() function in the lme4 package?

[Ken Knoblauch]

Douglas Bates <bates at ...> writes:
> When we wrote the nlme package we tried to be very careful about
> starting estimates and created the lmList function to allow evaluation
> of coefficients from within-group linear fits.  It turns out that it
> is most useful for longitudinal data where there are enough
> observations on each subject to do within-subject fits; that is, for
> data like the sleepstudy data.  Subsequent developments have made it
> easy enough to fit the mixed model reliably without needing a lot of
> preliminary work to get starting estimates.  (Similarly, the
> groupedData class was a good idea at the time but no longer
> necessary.)
> 
> Would anyone miss the lmList function if it was removed from future
> versions of lme4?

I would vote for keeping it, too.  Anything that facilitates exploring the
data is generally useful.  I always found the didactic use of lmList to motivate
the selection of variables that might be treated as random effects, in the
Pinheiro & Bates book very helpful.  I'm using the lme4 version in a chapter that
I'm writing currently, so have a vested interest in knowing whether it will
be deprecated, as well.  

Ken

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Ken Knoblauch
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