[R-sig-teaching] FW: Deducer 0.1 Released

[G. Jay Kerns]

Hello,

I tried Deducer earlier in the week (on Ubuntu Linux) and encountered
some hiccups, but I suspected that it had something to do with the
idiosyncrasies of my machine rather than the Deducer package proper.
So last night I did a *clean* install of Ubuntu 9.04 and all of my
other software.  Today, everything runs perfectly, without a hitch,
first time.

Some things I am doing which may be relevant (or, not):

1) using the latest version of R (session info below), installed from
CRAN according to the Ubuntu README
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/

2) only using package binaries from cran2deb, namely, r-cran-deducer,
r-cran-jgr, etc; did not build *anything* from scratch

3) am using sun-java-6, as opposed to some of the other Java
implementations (iced-tea, etc)

4) *must* do sudo R CMD javareconf


Furthermore, not only is JGR/Deducer working fine, but also rgl works
too (something that has caused me trouble in the past). Note, however,
that this does not address the 100% CPU issue with JGR reported
elsewhere earlier.

I have tried Deducer without JGR, and everything seems to be operating
according to plan.  The JGR console isn't there (obviously), but there
are command line selections to navigate through the menus, and they
seem to be functioning properly.  It is a little bit strange to use
the command line menus, though, because once you've made a selection
in a submenu, you can't go back one step if you change your mind; you
can only enter 0 to exit deducer() completely and start over from the
beginning.  The JGR console is much more convenient with its GUI and
'cancel' options.

In fact, JGR is already loaded as a dependency of Deducer... it would
appear to be easier overall for a person to just run JGR() at the
beginning to operate Deducer through the JGR console and sidestep the
command line entirely.  There are apparently other reasons why using
command line Deducer is desirable, from other discussions that I have
not read.


The other question was whether Deducer would be a good thing for
introductory statistics, and in my opinion the answer is "yes".  The
layout of the menus seems reminiscent of something like SPSS, and in
particular, many of the plots are integrated into the "Analysis" menu
items, rather than having a top menu of their own as in Rcmdr.  There
are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

I really like the "Data Viewer".  This is great.  It makes it much
easier to handle factors, factor levels, ordered factors, and
contrasts.

The main goal in my view is to get the students started, and I think
Deducer would accomplish that goal very well.

Cheers,
Jay





sessionInfo()
R version 2.9.1 (2009-06-26)
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

locale:
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=C;LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
 [1] stats4    splines   grid      stats     graphics  grDevices utils
 [8] datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
 [1] Deducer_0.1-0   lawstat_2.3     VGAM_0.7-9      foreign_0.8-36
 [5] effects_2.0-3   nnet_7.2-47     MASS_7.2-47     lattice_0.17-25
 [9] multcomp_1.1-1  survival_2.35-4 mvtnorm_0.9-7   car_1.2-14
[13] JGR_1.6-7       iplots_1.1-3    ggplot2_0.8.3   reshape_0.8.3
[17] plyr_0.1.9      proto_0.3-8     JavaGD_0.5-2    rJava_0.6-3

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.9.1
>





-- 
***************************************************
G. Jay Kerns, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH 44555-0002 USA
Office: 1035 Cushwa Hall
Phone: (330) 941-3310 Office (voice mail)
-3302 Department
-3170 FAX
VoIP: gjkerns at ekiga.net
E-mail: gkerns at ysu.edu
http://www.cc.ysu.edu/~gjkerns/