[R-wiki] Top level organization

[Philippe Grosjean]

Martin Maechler wrote:
>>>>>>"PhGr" == Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org>
>>>>>>    on Sat, 04 Feb 2006 08:17:38 +0100 writes:
> 
> 
>     PhGr> Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>     >> On 2/3/06, Ben Bolker <bolker at zoo.ufl.edu> wrote:
>     >> 
>     >>> Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>     >>> 
>     >>>> This is looking very good.
>     >>> 
>     >>> definitely agree.  I think we may eventually want
>     >>> to tweak the categories in Tips&tricks, but we're getting
>     >>> to the point now where we'll need to let some material
>     >>> accumulate before we can really decide on the best
>     >>> arrangement.
>     >>> 
>     >>> A few comments:
>     >>> 
>     >>>> - what is the difference among Manuals, Cookbooks and Tips and Tricks.
>     >>>> Its not clear to me.
>     >>> 
>     >>> 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"
>     >> 
>     >> 
>     >> 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.
> 
>     PhGr> No, there is no plan to wikify the official R manuals (just a link to 
>     PhGr> their PDF version on CRAN).
> 
> why that?  All the official R manuals (apart from the
> "reference", i.e. the help pages) are written in *.texi
> (texinfo) which then are translated to latex and pdf, but also
> to HTML (and to Emacs info).  Why not link to the HTML versions
> of the official manuals, or maybe even "wikify" the HTML version
> (but the "wikification" should setup in a way to be updatable
>  with every new release of R).
> 
> 
>     PhGr>  There will be only a wikified version of the 
>     PhGr> online help on R functions (in the R documentation section). This serves 
>     PhGr> two purposes:
> 
>     .............
> 
> 
> Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich

Because the interest of making a Wiki version of the R manuals is to 
allow changes in them, even if restricted to a given group of users. If 
you allow this:
- How do your merge those changes with the original texinfo version?
- Who will decide what to keep and what to reject?
- etc...

May be am I a little bit behind here, but I don't think the idea is to 
put *everything* in the Wiki. We want to put only what can be modified 
by R users. The only exception, currently, is the 'R documentation', 
alias the .Rd files that will be read-only, but with a discussion 
section at the end that will be editable. The Wiki is a *complement* to 
other resources, not a *replacement*, isn't it?

Otherwise, there is no technical barriers to put also the manuals (as 
read-only) on the Wiki. Same remark for package vignettes.

Best,

Philippe Grosjean