[R] Documenting different OO-aproaches in R as a package?

Martin Maechler maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch
Wed Jul 28 22:16:11 CEST 2010


>>>>> "s" == schuster  <mail at friedrich-schuster.de>
>>>>>     on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:17:09 +0200 writes:

    s> Hello,
 
    s> I see some people including myself confused by the
    s> different object-oriented approaches in R (S3, S4, OOP,
    s> R.oo etc.).

    s> Would it be ok to collect examples and solutions for the
    s> different OO-packages in one package and add a vignette
    s> for documentation?  (assuming I find time for this task)

    s> I mean in this case the package would not add data or
    s> functionality to R or serve as a companion package for a
    s> book. In this case the package would (only) add
    s> documentation to R. Is this ok?

Hmm,  we had discussed the issue within R Core in a team meeting
many years ago.
At the time, those present agreed that we should emphasize
S3 (for "small" and "legacy" applications) and S4,
and concentrate on these rather than fostering even more
alternatives.

Everything else has been by contributed by R users who were not
happy with S4 ... at the time at least ...
Note that in the last several R releases,
 S3 <-> S4 "interoparability" has been greatly improved.

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich


    s> ---- Friedrich Schuster Dompfaffenweg 6 69123 Heidelberg



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