Thank you for your answers. Just let me disagree slightly with Tomas view.
On 13/12/2023 12:05, Tomas Kalibera wrote: > On 12/13/23 11:27, Duncan Murdoch wrote: >> I doubt if anyone will take you up on this request. Only R Core >> members can change those manuals, and it's hard work to write clear >> and correct documentation. This probably won't make it high enough >> on their lists of priorities to actually be addressed. > > There is another aspect of this - portable R packages only use > documented behavior of R, relying on that such behavior will not > change unless absolutely necessary. A very hard part of > writing/expanding the official documentation is deciding on what > should and what shouldn't be the stable/documented behavior, and even > more so when it is about fundamental things. It is essential that some > behavior stays undocumented and is not relied on, otherwise it > wouldn't be possible to maintain and improve R. Actually, I would say that "portable R packages" use a lot these types of objects (formulas, calls, ...) and I would bet that they even use quite a lot of the undocumented behaviour I would expect to find, which is more needed precisely "when it is about fundamental things". Iago > > So if you primarily wanted to get an answer to a specific technical > question about say formulas, it is best to just ask that question, > rather than asking for expanding the documentation. > > Tomas > > >> >> What you could do is try to write it yourself. Find some helpers who >> really know the details (not necessarily R Core members) to review >> your proposal. Once you have it written and everyone agrees it is >> correct, either publish it as a blog entry somewhere, or submit it to >> R Core for inclusion in the manual. I don't recommend posting early >> drafts to this mailing list, though you could post near-final ones >> here: you're only going to get a few comments before people lose >> interest. >> >> This would be a lot of work for you. Besides the work of writing >> clearly and correctly, you need to learn the material. But that's a >> big benefit for you if you are really interested in working with this >> kind of thing. >> >> Duncan Murdoch >> >> On 13/12/2023 4:19 a.m., Iago Giné Vázquez wrote: >>> Dear all, >>> >>> >>> This is a request to get language objects more documented in the R >>> Language Definition document (CRAN >>> version<https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-lang.html>, >>> ETHZ R-devel >>> version<https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/doc/manual/R-lang.html>). >>> >>> Section '2.1.3 Language objects' claims >>> There are three types of objects that constitute the R language. >>> They are calls, expressions, and names. >>> But then there is only a subsection '2.1.3.1 Symbol objects' which, >>> if I do not understand wrongly, correspond to names subtype of >>> language objects. It would be great if calls and expressions >>> subtypes were specified with more detail as well. And also calls >>> subtype 'formula'. >>> >>> I came to here since when looking help for formula, it documents the >>> stats function formula -Model Formula-, and it just says that it >>> produces an object of class '"formula"' [...] and that a formula >>> object has an associated environment [...]. Maybe this, and saying >>> that the mode of a formula is a call it is enough to describe a >>> formula? >>> >>> Same section 2.1.3 also claims >>> >>> They can be [...] converted to and from lists by the as.list and >>> as.call functions >>> >>> It could be added also a description of how these lists should be >>> (structured, their components, names, etc.) for the different >>> language objects, that is, for names, expressions, calls, formulas >>> and so on. >>> >>> Thank you. >>> >>> Best wishes, >>> Iago >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >>> >>> ______________________________________________ >>> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
