[R] The Origins of R AND CALCULUS

Thu Feb 5 08:36:50 CET 2009

Now that is an interesting line, Ajay, and may help to defuse some frayed
tempers.

Newton, of course, minded very much. And that, really, is the heart of the
matter. For R-people (and I am one of them, so I don't use the term
pejoratively), clearly, mind very much, too. But only about part of the
story, it seems.

What is rather disconcerting is that they didn't rise up as one, to defend
the product in the spirit in which it was created. That is, from its origins
upwards, and roundly condemn a misleading article.

It would have been very easy for Mr. Vance to have written:

John M. Chambers, a former Bell Labs researcher who is now a consulting
professor of statistics at Stanford University, was an early champion. At
Bell Labs, Mr. Chambers had helped develop S, THE PROTOTYPE OF R, which was
meant to give researchers of all stripes an accessible data analysis tool.

Rather than what he did write:

"John M. Chambers, a former Bell Labs researcher who is now a consulting
professor of statistics at Stanford University, was an early champion. At
Bell Labs, Mr. Chambers had helped develop S, another statistics software
project, which was meant to give researchers of all stripes an accessible
data analysis tool."

Regards, Mark.

Ajay ohri wrote:
> 
> An amusing afterthought : What is a rival software (ahem!) was planting
> this, hoping for a divide between S and R communities.or at the very
> minimum
> hoping for some amusement. an assumption or even a pretense of stealing
> credit is one of the easiest ways of sparking intellectual discord
> Most users of softwares don't really care about who gets credit ( Who
> wrote
> Windows Vista ,or Mac OS or Ubuntu Linux), and the NYT is a newspaper not
> a
> journal.
> 
> Does any student, or teacher for that matter care whether Newton or
> Leibntiz
> invented calculas.
> 
> On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Mark Difford
> <mark_difford at yahoo.co.uk>wrote:
> 
>>
>> >> I think that all appeared on January 8 in Vance's blog posting, with a
>> >> comment on it by David M Smith on Jan 9.  So those people have -27
>> days
>>
>> Then there was no need for vituperative comments (not from you, of
>> course):
>> simply point doubters to the right place, as you have done. But Mr.
>> Vance's
>> comments only deepen the "mystery."
>>
>> If Mr. Vance was aware of the true origins of R, why did he choose to
>> misrepresent them in his article, which is what got the publicity and
>> which
>> is the item that most people saw/read? Most right-thinking people don't,
>> wouldn't, or haven't taken the matter further than that. Their
>> criticisms,
>> as mine have been, have been aimed at the NY Times and Mr. Vance's lack
>> of
>> ethics. It also seems clear from Mr. Vance's comments that there was no
>> editorial or sub-editorial meddling.
>>
>> The knee-jerk reaction ? Well, it is almost amusing to see how sensitive
>> some very hard-nosed individuals on this list can be, or have become.
>>
>> Regards, Mark.
>>
>> still to wait.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> > On 2/4/2009 3:53 PM, Mark Difford wrote:
>> >>>> >>> Indeed.  The postings exuded a tabloid-esque level of slimy
>> >>>>>>  nastiness.
>> >>
>> >> Hi Rolf,
>> >>
>> >> It is good to have clarification, for you wrote "..,the postings...,"
>> >> tarring everyone with the same brush. And it was quite a nasty brush.
>> It
>> >> also is conjecture that "this was due to an editor or sub-editor,"
>> i.e.
>> >> the
>> >> botched article.
>> >>
>> >> I think that what some people are waiting for are factual statements
>> from
>> >> the parties concerned. Conjecture is, well, little more than
>> conjecture.
>> >
>> > I think that all appeared on January 8 in Vance's blog posting, with a
>> > comment on it by David M Smith on Jan 9.  So those people have -27 days
>> > still to wait.
>> >
>> > Duncan Murdoch
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Regards, Mark.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Rolf Turner-3 wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On 4/02/2009, at 8:15 PM, Mark Difford wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>>> Indeed.  The postings exuded a tabloid-esque level of slimy
>> >>>>>> nastiness.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Indeed, indeed. But I do not feel that that is necessarily the
>> >>>> case. Credit
>> >>>> should be given where credit is due. And that, I believe is the
>> >>>> issue that
>> >>>> is getting (some) people hot and bothered. Certainly, Trevor Hastie
>> >>>> in his
>> >>>> reply to the NY Times article, was not too happy with this aspect
>> >>>> of the
>> >>>> story.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Granted, his comments were not made on this list, but the objection
>> is
>> >>>> essentially the same. I would not call what he had to say "Mischief
>> >>>> making"
>> >>>> or smacking of a "tabloid-esque level of slimy nastiness." The knee-
>> >>>> jerk
>> >>>> reaction seems to be that this is a criticism of R. It is not. It is
>> a
>> >>>> criticism of a poorly researched article.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> It also is an undeniable and inescapable fact that most S code runs
>> >>>> in R.
>> >>>
>> >>> The problem is not with criticism of the NY Times article, although
>> >>> as Pat
>> >>> Burns and others have pointed out this criticism was somewhat
>> >>> misdirected
>> >>> and unrealistic considering the exigencies of newspaper editing.  The
>> >>> problem
>> >>> was with a number of posts that cast aspersions upon the integrity of
>> >>> Ihaka and Gentleman.  It is these posts that exuded tabloid-esque
>> slimy
>> >>> nastiness.
>> >>>
>> >>> I am sure that Ross and Robert would never dream of failing to give
>> >>> credit
>> >>> where credit is due and it is almost certainly the case that they
>> >>> explained
>> >>> the origins of R in the S language to the writer of the NYT article
>> >>> (wherefrom
>> >>> the explanation was cut in the editing process).
>> >>>
>> >>> Those of us on this list (with the possible exception of one or two
>> >>> nutters)
>> >>> would take it that it goes without saying that R was developed on the
>> >>> basis
>> >>> of S --- we all ***know*** that.  To impugn the integrity of Ihaka
>> >>> and Gentleman,
>> >>> because an article which *they didn't write* failed to mention this
>> >>> fact, is
>> >>> unconscionable.
>> >>>
>> >>>     cheers,
>> >>>
>> >>>             Rolf Turner
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> ######################################################################
>> >>> Attention:\ This e-mail message is privileged and
>> confid...{{dropped:9}}
>> >>>
>> >>> ______________________________________________
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>> >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
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>> >>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> >>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>> > ______________________________________________
>> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>> >
>> >
>>
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>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
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>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
> 
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> 
> ______________________________________________
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> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
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