[R] R Style Guide -- Was Post-hoc tests in MASS using glm.nb

[Bill.Venables at csiro.au]

I used to think like that.  However I have recently re-read John Chambers' "Software for Data Analysis" and now I'm starting to see the point.

S4 classes and methods do require you to plan your classes and methods well and the do impose a discipline that can seem rigid and unnecessary.  But I have found that to program well you do need to exerceise a lot of discipline, mainly because it can take quite some time to spot all the inadequacies and even traps in your code that an ill-disciplined approach lets you get away with at first.

IMHO, of course.  Perhaps you can all see the traps that elude me.  

Cheers,
Bill.

PS Rolf Turner?  Respectful?  Goodness, what's going on?  :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Rolf Turner [mailto:rolf.turner at xtra.co.nz] 
Sent: Thursday, 19 May 2011 9:34 AM
To: Venables, Bill (CMIS, Dutton Park)
Cc: r-help at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] R Style Guide -- Was Post-hoc tests in MASS using glm.nb


On 19/05/11 10:26, Bill.Venables at csiro.au wrote:

<SNIP>
> Most of [the Google style guide's] advice is very good (meaning I agree with it!) but some is a bit too much (for example, the blanket advice never to use S4 classes and methods - that's just resisting progress, in my view).
<SNIP>

I must respectfully disagree with this view, and concur heartily with 
the style guide.
S4 classes and methods are a ball-and-chain that one has to drag along.  
See also
fortune("S4 methods"). :-)

     cheers,

         Rolf