[RsR] Function names

[Friedrich@Leisch m@iii@g oii tuwie@@@c@@t]

>>>>> On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 14:13:38 +0100,
>>>>> Jean-Christophe BOUETTE (JB) wrote:

  > I wasn't in Treviso, but the question was adressed in
  > http://www.dst.unive.it/rsr/Konis-treviso.pdf
  > and the answer was glmRob... the same as in Insightful's library.

  > Or do we need another vote? ;-)

I'm not sure about another vote, but what I am sure about is, that we
need to be *very* careful when using the same names as S-Plus does: If
we use the same name, the functions should be fully compatible, i.e.,
take the same arguments (with same names) and return the same objects.

So the real question is not what name to use, but whether we want a
clone of the S-Plus function or not.

 Pro clone: Code using the function can be used on both S-Plus and R

 Contra clone: The first solution to a given problem is not always the
 best one.

Kjells talk was mostly on recreating the existing S-Plus solution
(based on the possible "code donation" by Insightful). If you remember
the discussion after his talk: there were several people (including
myself) who are not so enthusiastic about cloning the robust library,
because we would make some design decisions differently.

Don't get me wrong: I liked Kjell's talk very much and the Splus
robust library has a lot of good stuff in it, but time goes on, and
people tend to learn.

We are now at a point where we can get it right, and we have the
advantage of existing prototype code, which we can analyze for
strengths and weaknesses. All I'm saying is don't clone without
thinking first. If we use a different name, we can play around and see
what the outcome will be. If we use the same name, users will expect
that at some point in time it does (almost) exactly the same thing as
the S-plus function.

Just my 2c

Best,
Fritz

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                        Friedrich Leisch 
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