[R] Problems in Recommending R

[Martin Maechler]

[coming late to an interesting thread ...]

>>>>> "Ao" == Ajay ohri <ohri2007 at gmail.com>
>>>>>     on Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:14:03 +0530 writes:

    Ao> Plain HTML coding is simple enough for this list ( I think)...but aesthetic
    Ao> design....hmm

I tend to agree.  A few months ago, we had volunteers to improve
the ESS homepage (http://ess.r-project.org/), and I had asked
for a similar .. but different! .. restriction :
 Yes: the result should be maintainable by SVN
 BUT: it can depend on server-side functionality

Consequently, the two volunteers, Domenico Vistocco and Wilmar
Igl, confined the code to using PHP (+ HTML + CSS), and while
the result is not as if it had be done by (highly paid!)
professional designers, it is a big step forward, and we've been very
grateful for Domenico's and Wilmar's initiative and its result.

    Ao> But a contest would the best way to get the best design  and can be
    Ao> publicly asked from the graphics community ( not just the R
    Ao> community)..remember Tom Sawyer and the fence :)

I would find it fun to have a contest on this...
with the restriction of "ASCII-files (+ a few pics) maintainable by SVN"
but *not* restricting it to "no-server-side modules required".

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich

    Ao> - I volunteer in both cases :)

    Ao> Winner of Design Contest should get

    Ao> some bragging rights in a small hyperlink   (with nofollow tag -so no seo)
    Ao> on main page ,French Wine in the user conference location ,
    Ao> etc etc...


    Ao> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 5:26 PM, <friedrich.leisch at stat.uni-muenchen.de>wrote:

    >> >>>>> On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:44:21 +0100,
    >> >>>>> Thomas Petzoldt (TP) wrote:
    >> 
    >> > Hi,
    >> > you are probably right, though I must say that I like *spartanic and
    >> > efficient* homepages and I don't think that the example given by the
    >> > first mail is a good prototype for the R homepage. But, yes, occasional
    >> > face lifting may be adequate.  Anti-aliasing is of course simple, but
    >> > that's probably not the point. (And I know that there are graphics
    >> > experts with a masters in psychology between us.)
    >> 
    >> > So, why not a new Homepage Graphics Competition 2009? There is still
    >> > some time until useR!2009 in Rennes:
    >> 
    >> > http://www2.agrocampus-ouest.fr/math/useR-2009/
    >> 
    >> Perhaps we should extend that to a competition for the complete design
    >> of the homepage?
    >> 
    >> We often get emails like the first in this thread that R could do with
    >> an update on homepage design (I fully agree) ... but actually nobody
    >> volunteers to do it. Hence, we still have what I did when the
    >> worldwide number of R users was probably less than 1000.
    >> 
    >> For technical reasons there are some conditions: the homepage is
    >> maintained via SVN like the R sources, so all should be plain HTML, no
    >> content management system etc.
    >> 
    >> Ad frames: the main reason that I used them in the first place is to
    >> have the menus etc in only one file, no need for updating several
    >> files when a link changes. Today I would probably use iframes, but any
    >> other soultion is fine, too.
    >> 
    >> Another plus would be if we could use the same design for CRAN, and
    >> that means no server-trickery like server-side includes etc (because
    >> we do not control the server setup of the mirrors).
    >> 
    >> Best,
    >> Fritz
    >> 
    >> --
    >> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    >> Prof. Dr. Friedrich Leisch
    >> 
    >> Institut für Statistik                          Tel: (+49 89) 2180 3165
    >> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität                  Fax: (+49 89) 2180 5308
    >> Ludwigstraße 33
    >> D-80539 München                     http://www.statistik.lmu.de/~leisch
    >> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    >> Journal Computational Statistics --- http://www.springer.com/180
    >> Münchner R Kurse --- http://www.statistik.lmu.de/R
    >> 
    >> ______________________________________________
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    >> PLEASE do read the posting guide
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    >> 

    Ao> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

    Ao> ______________________________________________
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    Ao> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
    Ao> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.