[R-wiki] Top level organization

[Philippe Grosjean]

Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> On 2/4/06, Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>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.
>>
> 
> 
> Is there any method of having the link itself indicate how much
> is available via that link so that, for example, if there is nothing
> there one does not have to bother clicking it.
> 
> For example, at this page we can see at a glance how much info
> is under each link:
> 
> http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/?il=1

I don't know how to do that. You must probably modify the DokuWiki 
engine itself.

Philippe Grosjean