[RsR] Traditional vs. lattice graphics

[Achim Zeileis]

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005, Valentin Todorov wrote:

> Dear RSR-List,
>
> I wish you all the best in the new 2006.
>
> May be all of you are enjoying the holidays, but I want to ask (a stupid?)
> question about graphics - what type of graphics shall we prefer for
> implementing the plot functions of a package, the traditional graphics or
> the lattice package:
>
> a) only traditional
> b) only lattice
> c) mixed (some of the plots are implemented using traditional graphics and
> others - the lattice package)
> d) both - all plots in the package are implemented as traditional as well as
> lattice plots and the user has an option to choose one of them.

Let me say two things about this:
  1. base vs. lattice graphics is not the only choice. You can also write
     graphics using grid directly and not via the lattice package. This
     is particularly useful if you want to create plots that do not fit
     directly in the lattice framework. We have done this for the vcd
     package which contains some vignettes describing the ideas that went
     into the creation of the package.
  2. My experience from writing vcd is that - as long as you don't do very
     sophisticated graphics that reach very deep into the base graphics or
     grid routines - it is not very much work to write a core computation
     engine and then render the plot either in base or grid. For example,
     I've written spineplot() first in base graphics and then easily
     transferred it to a grid implementation in spine() in vcd.
Just my EUR 0.02 and my experience...
Z


> Best regards,
> Valentin
>
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