[R] Forum of Mac questions (Was: loading packages - mac user)

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "BDR" == Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk>
>>>>>     on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 08:58:20 +0100 (BST) writes:

    BDR> On Wed, 19 Oct 2005, Jari Oksanen wrote:
    >> On Tue, 2005-10-18 at 13:13 -0700, Thomas Lumley wrote:
    >> 
    >>> Both for this and for working out why Tcl/Tk isn't
    >>> installed you might be better off trying R-sig-mac
    >>> rather than r-help
    >>> 
    >>  This is a very common piece of advice. However, this is
    >> not what you would imagine if you read the description of
    >> R-SIG-mac on the R home page:

    BDR> It is not actually on the R home page or even on
    BDR> www.r-project.org.  I think you mean

    BDR> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac

    BDR> This arises because the purpose of the list has changed
    BDR> from

    BDR>    R Special Interest Group on Macintosh Development
    BDR> and Porting, both for MacOS 8.6 - 9.x and MacOS X

    BDR> I think a wording like R-sig-debian namely

    BDR>    R Special Interest Group for MacOS X ports of R

    BDR> would be better.

yes, thank you both  ---- IFF this is really the intention.

Stefano Iacus is the maintainer (and initiator) of the list
and should say (and maybe ask on the R-SIG-Mac list) what he 
(and the subscribers) really wants.

    >> R-SIG-Mac R Special Interest Group on Mac Development
    >> 
    >> This is very similar to the description of R-devel:
    >> 
    >> This list is intended for questions and discussion about
    >> code development in R.
    >> 
    >> And that description is even more intimidating when you
    >> read further:
    >> 
    >> Questions likely to prompt discussion unintelligible to
    >> non-programmers or topics that are too technical for
    >> R-help's audience should go to R-devel
    >> 
    >> Would it make sense to change the description of
    >> R-SIG-mac so that it would welcome question on R usage in
    >> Mac, instead of being a "Mac Devolepment" forum that
    >> sounds like being "unintelligible to non-programmers"?

    BDR> Which seems quite reasonable to me.  The topics which
    BDR> provoke this response usually are questions
    BDR> unintelligible except to Mac sysadmins/programmers and
    BDR> definitely `too technical for R-help's audience'.

I agree.  We shouldn't let R users on the Mac think that all
their questions should go to R-SIG-Mac.
Regular R questions should continue to come to R-help (or
R-devel) just as per the posting guide.

Martin Maechler


    BDR> -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of
    BDR> Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
    BDR> University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1
    BDR> South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG,
    BDR> UK Fax: +44 1865 272595