[Rd] automatically adding smooth to plot: options("plot.add.smooth")

Martin Maechler maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch
Mon Sep 19 16:38:31 CEST 2005


>>>>> "PaulG" == Paul Gilbert <pgilbert at bank-banque-canada.ca>
>>>>>     on Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:01:57 -0400 writes:

    PaulG> Martin Maechler wrote:
    >> I've changed the subject in the hope some more people
    >> would voice an opinion...

    PaulG> ...

    >> Now I even propose to have
    >> 
    >> options(add.smooth = TRUE)
    >> 
    >> as a new default.....
    >> 
    >> Do I get a reaction now?  Martin

    PaulG> I think you may break a lot of things if you make
    PaulG> this the default for plot. 

You mean plot.default().
Yes, that would be quite dangerous to do and you give a good example:

    PaulG> this the default for plot. Plot gets used by other
    PaulG> things (like matplot) where this default may not make
    PaulG> much sense. (But I may have missed too much of the
    PaulG> earlier discussion under some other subject.)

or I was not clear enough:
For R 2.2.0, the option would only be used in plot.lm().
Since I'd set its default to TRUE,  plot.lm()'s panels would use
panel.smooth(x,y,...) rather than points(x,y,...), 
and this actually does look quite useful.

Martin



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