[R-wiki] Top level organization

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On 2/4/06, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> > On 2/3/06, Ben Bolker <bolker at zoo.ufl.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>>[GG]
> >>>>A few comments:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>- what is the difference among Manuals, Cookbooks and Tips and Tricks.
> >>>>>Its not clear to me.
> >>>>
> >>>> [BB]
> >>>>  Manuals and "cookbooks" are longer and by a single or a few authors;
> >>>>tips and tricks are shorter and more collaborative (I've tried to
> >>>>clarify a little bit by adding a few short descriptions to
> >>>>"start2").  That said, I think the subdivision within "Guides"
> >>>
> >>>[GG]
> >>>This is still not clear..  There are THREE categories currently,
> >>>not two.  The three possible categories I can see are:
> >>>
> >>>- official R manuals.  The official manuals that come with R wifieid.
> >>>- other R documents.  Contributions from users.
> >>>- snippets.  Paul Johnson's collection, etc.
> >>>
> >>>Is that the distinction?  Should it be?
> >>>
> >>
> >>Are you looking at http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=start2
> >>?   it has "Getting Started", "Guides", "Tips & Tricks", "R Packages",
> >>"R Documentation", "Links", "Miscellaneous".
> >>  I would say "R Documentation" = your category #1
> >>              "Guides" = your category #2
> >>              "Tips & Tricks" = your category #3
> >>
> >>  I like this set of categories and (for the most part) names for them.
> >>
> >>  I can imagine arguing some more about the proper name for Tips&Tricks
> >>(=  Snippets = Short examples & notes = Rtips and other stuff = Code
> >>library = Shorter material = ... ?); I can also imagine that "R
> >>Packages" needs some clarification (what's in here? notes on R packages?
> >>Wikified documentation -- or is that in "R Documentation", which claims
> >>to have help for all of CRAN and Bioconductor?)
> >
> >
> > Yes, I am looking at that link.  Reproducing part of it here:
> >
> > Getting Started
> > Do you want to know what R is, or do you want to start using it? Get
> > started. I tried to make the section header into a link to
> > getting-started:getting-started, but DocuWiki didn't seem to
> > understand ...
> >
> > What is R? – A short explanation and a few examples of R's potential
> > Case studies – People explain how and why they started to use R
> > R installation – All you need to know to install R and additional R packages
> > Reference cards – Brief overviews of tasks and associated commands
> > Translations – To and from other statistics packages and computer
> > languages provide link to foreign-language information?
> > FAQ – Beginners' Frequently Asked Questions
> >
> > Guides
> > Longer documents introducing R, demonstrating particular kinds of
> > analyses, or describing how R is used in particular fields previous
> > link was to tutorials:tutorials. Was that right??
> >
> > Demonstrations – Let you drive and look how R works
> > Tutorials – Let you drive, but do it yourself
> > Manuals – Textbooks, classical approach
> >     Statistics with R
> > Cookbooks – Textbooks, learn-by-example approach
> >
> > Tips & Tricks
> > ...
> >
> > Now the last three are Manuals, Cookbooks and Tips and Tricks.
> > To me a cookbook is the same as tips and tricks.  For example
> > there are a number of O'Reilly published books called cookbooks
> > that are collections of snippets.
> >
> > Thus we need to get rid of the cookbooks category.
> >
> > Also what is Statistics with R?  Is that a statistics book that
> > happens to use R?
>
> It "happens" to be something like that! It is
> http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=tutorials:stats-with-r:00stats-with-r,
> that is a large document kindly donated to R Wiki by his author (but
> someone still has to convert it - I did the first page, to determine how
> much work it is -actually, less than I was thinking initially-)!
>
> Philippe
>
> P.S.: it is one thing to construct the structure of the Wiki, it is
> another thing to fill it! I am absolutely against any structure that
> would look much like an empty shell. Understand: if you propose sections
> (you were very imaginative for 'Getting Started', and I thank you for
> that), just keep in mind that we also have to fill these section with a
> very minimum amount of material before we launch the Wiki (was it
> planned for the end of the month?) So, may be now is it time to stop
> working on the structure, and to start working on the content, as
> suggested by Ben.
>
> > If so, that is not a manual and those
> > should not be listed under manuals or else manuals needs
> > to be a different word.  I am not sure what is intended here.

Actually I think a good top level structure set up as early as possible
would make a big difference because it would make the entire project
easier to navigate.