[R] The hidden costs of GPL software?

[Mike Prager]

At 11/18/2004 07:01 AM Thursday, Thomas Schönhoff wrote:

>To sum up, what I am in need to is an extensive example based help-system, 
>focused on how to do things in R. In parts this is already there, i.e. 
>SimpleR from Verzani (contributed docs area) etc.
>
>Hopefully I can  contribute to this in future, since it is seems to me 
>invaluable to learn R by going through example-based lessons (some are 
>found in vignette() ).
>These are much more comprehensible to me than those short reference like 
>entries in the current help-system, mostly due to their very technical 
>approach (same is to be said about the official GNU R manuals, especially 
>"The R Language", which wasn't a great help for me when I took my first 
>look at GNU R). In this context something like the GuideMaps of Vista come 
>to my mind!
>
>But to be as clear as possible, I think GNU R is great and I appreciate 
>all the efforts done by the R core team and associates!
>
>Nevertheless it seems to be valuable to re-think the help-system in R with 
>respect to those who may have a good understanding in statistics, but 
>lacking some basic experiences in how to introduce themselves to 
>sophisticated world of R/S languages.

(I posted similar material before, but it was moved to R-devel, and I 
wanted to express a bit of it here.)

I have frequently felt, like Thomas, that what could make R easier to use 
is not a GUI, but a help system more focused on tasks and examples, rather 
than on functions and packages.  This has obvious and large costs of 
development, and I am unlikely to contribute much myself, for reasons of 
time and ability.  Yet, I mention it for the sake of this discussion.

Such a help system could be a tree (or key) structure in which through 
making choices, the user's description of the desired task is gradually 
narrowed.  At the end of each twig of the tree would be a list of suggested 
functions for solving the problem, hyperlinked into the existing help 
system (which in many ways is outstanding and has evolved just as fast as R 
itself).  This could be coupled with the continued expansion of the number 
of examples in the help system.

Now I must express appreciation for what exists already that helps in this 
regard:  MASS (in its many editions), Introductory Statistics with R, 
Simple R, and the other free documentation that so many authors have 
generously provided.  Not to mention the superlative contribution of R 
itself, and the work of the R development team.  It is beyond my 
understanding how something so valuable and well thought out has been 
created by people with so many other responsibilities.

Mike


-- 
Michael Prager, Ph.D.
Population Dynamics Team, NMFS SE Fisheries Science Center
NOAA Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research
Beaufort, North Carolina  28516
http://shrimp.ccfhrb.noaa.gov/~mprager/