Berwin A Turlach wrote: > On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:27:41 +0100 > Wacek Kusnierczyk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> but then it might be worth asking whether carrying on with misdesign >> for backward compatibility outbalances guaranteed crashes in future >> users' programs, [...] >> > > Why is it worth asking this if nobody else asks it? Most notably a > certain software company in Redmond, Washington, which is famous for > carrying on with bad designs and bugs all in the name of backward > compatibility. Apparently this company also sets industry standards so > it must be o.k. to do that. ;-) >
sure. i have had this analogy in mind for a long time, but just didn't want to say it aloud. indeed, r carries on with bad design, but since there are more and more users, it's just fine. > >> which result in confused complaints, >> > > Didn't see any confused complaints yet. really. the discussion was motivated precisely by a user's complaint. just scan this list; a large part of the questions stems from confusion, which results directly from r's design. > Only polite requests for > enlightenment after coming across behaviour that useRs found surprising > given their knowledge of R. The confused complaints seem to be posted > as responses to responses to such question by people who for what ever > reason seem to have an axe to grind with R. > >> the need for responses suggesting hacks to bypass the design, >> > > Not to bypass the design, but to achieve what the person whats. As any > programming language, R is a Turing machine and anything can be done > with it; it is just a question how. > yes, to bypass the design. to achieve what one would normally expect an expression to be evaluated to, but r does it differently. > >> and possibly incorrect results published >> > > I guess such things cannot be avoided no matter what software you are > using. I am more worried about all the analysis done in MS Excel, in > particular in the financial maths/stats world. Also, to me it seems > that getting incorrect results is a relative small problem compared with > the frequent misinterpretation of correct results or the use of > inappropriate statistical techniques. > could not agree more, which does oppose in any way my complaints. > >> because r is likely to do everything but what the user expects. >> > > This is quite a strong statement, and I wonder what the basis is for > that a statement. Care to provide any evidence? > i could think of organizing a (don't)useR conference, where submissions would provide such evidence. whatever i say here, is mostly discarded as nonsense comments (while it certainly isn't), you say i make the problem up (while i just follow up user's complaints). seriously, i may have exaggerated in the immediately above, but lots of comments made here by the users convince me that r very often breaks expectations. > R is a tool; a very powerful one and hence also very sharp. It is easy > to cut yourself with it, but when one knows how to use it gives the > results that one expects. I guess the problem in this age of instant > gratification is that people are not willing to put in the time and > effort to learn about the tools they are using. > but a good tool should be made with care for how users will use it. r apparently fits the ideas of its developers, while confuses naive users. i do not opt for redmond-like 'i know better what you want' intelligence, but i think some of the confusions should be predicted and the design tuned accordingly. > How about spending some time learning about R instead of continuously > griping about it? Just imagine how much you could have learned in the > time you spend writing all those e-mails. :) > i learn a lot while writing these emails, because i do read manuals and make up tests. but there would be little progress if we all were buying what we are given instead of critically examining it. i can stop posting at any moment, but i don't think it would help the community ;) >> r suffers from early made poor decisions, but then this in itself is >> not a good reason to carry on. >> > > Radford Neal is also complaining on his blog > (http://radfordneal.wordpress.com/) about what he thinks are design > flaws in R. Why don't you two get together and design a good > substitute without any flaws? Or is that too hard? ;-) > it's certainly hard to design and implement a system of the size of r. it's certainly easier to just complain rather than make a better tool. but it would really be a pitiful world if all of us were just developing, and no one would criticize. my purpose is not (or not just, if you prefer) to annoy the r team, but to point out and document issues that really need rethinking. discouragingly, many of these issues appear to be known already, but simply ignored. vQ ______________________________________________ R-help@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.
