[R] Problems in Recommending R

[Duncan Murdoch]

Hadley put together a couple of nice versions of the main Windows 
download page cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base, and I've adopted one 
of them for the release, and the patched and devel snapshot builds. 
They should show up on CRAN in a few hours.

Thanks a lot for the contribution, Hadley:  I hope you also get involved 
in the larger CRAN redesign mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

Duncan Murdoch

On 2/3/2009 9:20 AM, hadley wickham wrote:
>> Again I'd disagree, perhaps the most widely used suite of software has a
>> very simple and clean web-site with few bells and whistles, ditto for one of
>> the most popular text-editors.  I am of course referring to the suite of GNU
>> utilities (http://www.gnu.org/) that make a working GNU/Linux distribution
>> and Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ ).
>>
>> I like the R web-site, its clean and simple, present key information
>> prominently (manuals, docs, CRAN, RNew and mailing lists).
> 
> Have you ever used the R website?
> 
> To download the latest version for R for windows you have to:
> 
>  1. avoid clicking on the "R version 2.8.1" link - that takes you to a
> directory listing of strangely named files
> 
>  2. recognise that you need to click on an CRAN (what is a cran?)
> 
>  3. successfully select a mirror that is up-to-date (with no
> information about which mirrors are up-to-date)
> 
>  4. click Windows (ok, this one is easy)
> 
>  5. guess that base is the "distribution" that you want
> 
>  6. phew, you're there (but don't follow the advice to download from a
> mirror near you or you'll be back at step 3)
> 
> And then if you want to email the url of that page to someone else you
> have to jump through hoops because it's embedded in a frame.
> 
> Hadley
>